Die Tage von Pompeji

I wish that Carmen Culver & Edward Bulwar Lyon lived in the same era & that Carmen Culver read over his writings at the time, & had rewritten it for him, so that her work would be the actual "The Last Days of Pompeii" novel.

The truth is, the original was horrible. Edward Bulwar's writing of the book was very cheesy.

I will never understand why the critics panned her work. Her miniseries was really wonderful. After seeing it again after so many years, I still absolutely loved it.

A 100% romantic movie.

I've read the novel written by Bulwer Lytton, I visited Pompeii about 5 times and have read scores of books on the city and its dramatic destruction. This is the best screen adaptation of the book so far. It sticks quite well to Bulwer's novel and adds quite a few pleasant characters and events. Of course this mini-series is not perfect, even has countless flaws : the Temple of Isis, the houses of Glaucus and Diomedes come directly out of the set-designers' imagination, sending Christians to the lions is a bit too cliché, some aspects of the novel have been changed to make it all more dynamic (the novel is very slow-paced actually). But all in all, the plot is interesting, changes and additions good. Nead Beatty's portrayal of Diomedes is just brilliant!! Lesley-Ann Down is gorgeous as Chloe... The day this mini-series comes out on DVD, I'll buy it right away!

I love this film! I have been looking for it for the past 5 years. I grew up watching this film over and over. In fact, for a brief history:

my parents recorded this film off the T.V station it played on (I can't remember which, though I've looked for it at the three major ones) and when we moved to Nigeria, I watched it for the first time. This was years after they had recorded it of course. I watched it often, since it's long and it took three tapes for the entire film, it was my favorite chore (self-imposed of course) to watch it and make sure the tape was not ruined. You can imagine how many times I took it upon myself to ensure this.

Basically, the last time I watched it was in 1998! And when I was coming back here that year, I did not have enough space in my suitcase to bring all the books and films I wanted to. So sadly, it got left behind.

I am a film student today, and I want to see if the film still holds up to the ideals it did when I was 17. It is definitely a must watch! If you like epic movies like "The Ten Commandments" and "Ben Hur" you will love this film. The history of the people, the effects of the explosion (which I must confess were a bit repetitious and made me think of foam buildings sometimes), the characters, the world the characters inhabited...WOW! I could go on...Films like this one (well, this film really) made me yearn to learn the Roman culture so much that I actually made it a goal (which I have met, and hopefully will again) to visit Rome and see the Colosseum. Gladiator, eat your heart out! This film showed the culture of the people and their lifestyles, not just blood and gore.Watch it if you can. I wish it were released in theaters--if they ran films that long.

I´ve first seen in 1985, and was the first time that a movie touch my heart, then I read the book and I think that the traslation to the movie is very difficult, but Peter Hunt give us a masterpiece. The adaptation is amazing, and the cast is excellent specially by the beauty from Argentinian actress Olivia Hussey as Ione and Franco Nero as the the cruel Arbaces the Obscure.

I recommend as one of the best mini-series of all time.

I would just like to say, that I agree with many fans, that Duncan made the series what it was, with his great performance as the Gladiator Lydon. It was a very haunting tale of love, violence and destruction, in ancient Pompeii. I also thought that Nicholas Clay did a great job as Glaucus in the series. I had just started college, at the time this series was shown on television in the UK, during Christmas 1984. Not long after this series was shown, I watched My Wicked, Wicked Ways, in 1985 with Duncan portraying Errol Flynn. I thought that he did a good job in this film, even though it was a poor production, and quite hammy!! But anything that Duncan Regehr is in, is worth watching, just to see him...