Le dernier des Romains

Robert Siodmak is a legend ! A career which spanned almost half a century , began in the silent age ("Menschen am Sonntag" ) ,continued in France after he was driven away from his land by the Nazis ("pièges" "Mollenard ,capitaine corsaire) reached peaks of film noir in America ("the killers" " the dark mirror" "the spiral staircase " "cry of the city" ,to name but four) ;back in Germany ,he was to produce more great works such as "die Ratten " or " Nachts,wenn der Teufel kam".

In the sixties he was doing movies which were not really personal (with the exception of "tunnel 28" ,about the wall of Berlin) ,potboilers , but not uninteresting ("der Schut " is a fine adventures yarn )

The peplum (sword and sandals ) genre was a bit obsolete in the late sixties,whereas it was a dominant one earlier ; this one has an international cast ,with big names,which was not often the case in early Italian peplums ;no muscle man but a bevy of famous stars even Orson Welles-who really seemed to consider Siodmak's film a potboiler and quickly quit the screen after two scenes (the first one ending with a nonchalant "let's pray".)

Forget history and you almost have a pilot for an imaginary miniseries (although there's a second episode , there are so many subplots you can't count them all ); the Honor Blackman/Bergmanian Harriet Anderson feud, the Roman girl in love with a Goth count , their king forced to marry a princess and to -reluctantly- renege on his peasant wife (in the meantime ,their beloved son has been taken hostage )...history is only a vague background ,very storylike .

Siodmak nevertheless showed he had not lost his flair for film noir : Blackman's deadly bath is worthy of his scary movies ; the film abruptly ends ,to make the audience come back and see the second installment .

Of course it does not compare favorably with most of the director's works, but it's entertaining stuff and ,athough not the epitaph the director deserved, you can save it (them,do not forget the second episode) for a rainy day.

Around 500 A.D., after Rome has fallen, a Roman politician,Cethegus, played by Laurence Harvey, tries to return Rome to greatness. He plays the Goth leaders, who really ruled Italy at this time, against each other. The surviving leader attacks Rome at which point Cethegus gets military help from the Emperor Justinian (Orson Wells), while he keeps his army in reserve to take on whoever is left. Events don't quite go as he planned

This is a complex, well plotted film. It is no Ben Hur, but the characters are engaging, the political intrigue is very well developed, the acting quite good (Laurence Harvey's final scene is great) and the battle scenes truly epic. In an unusual bit a casting, Michale Dunn plays Justinian's general Narses and, in great performance,steals almost every scene he is in. This is a quite good unjustly neglected epic well worth tracking down and seeing. It was released on video tape in the late 1970's but not in wide screen which this film really needs, and Honour Blackman's topless scene was, alas,cropped to just a closeup from the neck up.

'Kampf um Rom' appears to be an above average epic, but the version I saw is severely compromised. The recent German DVD release crops the original Techniscope image (2.35:1) to TV dimensions (1.33:1), then masks off the top and bottom of the picture to create an ersatz 1.66:1 ratio. I'm guessing their master copy was a print prepared for television. The faded colours, specks and scratches suggest it was done many years ago. While part one appears to be intact - I'm not sure - part two is obviously edited, with clumsy jump cuts where violence has been trimmed. Judging from the widescreen trailer - included on the DVD - an entire scene was removed, where a servant becomes an unwilling participant in an orgy. The DVD distributor, Universum Film, is usually meticulous with its releases. Presumably, the negative for 'Kampf um Rom' is lost and there were no usable inter-positives or even theatrical prints. Given this major problem, I'm surprised they went ahead with the release. Under the circumstances, the lack of an English option - either soundtrack or subtitles - hardly matters.

It's been 50 years since Rome fell to the Goths and nowadays their rule is slipping . King Theodorico of the Ostrogoths tribe is dead and their daughters , Mathawsintha : Harriet Anderson and Amalaswintha : Honor Blackman are confronting for the powerful throne . Cethegus : Laurence Harvey, leader of the Roman nobility starts the war between the Ostrogoths and their queen , Amalasuntha and the Byzantine Empire . But when the Byzantine force commanded by Belisarius : Lang Jeffries invades Italy to reconquer Rome , it threatens to ruin the plans for Cethegus who tries to uses his own army to take control of the dangerous situation . Along the way , Cethegus attempts to set the two sides : The Goths and Byzantines to wage war against each other . Things go wrong when Cethegus' daughter : Ingrid Boulting falls in love for a Barbarian prince and Goth heir : Robert Hoffman.

A disjointed and heavily cut film based on the novel written by Felix Dahn , dealing with the downfall of the Roman Empire and taking very freely the actual facts . It packs moving drama with twisted events , betrayal , brief nudism , and especially impressive battles . In the picture stands out the breathtaking battles staged by thousands of extras from Romania and in charge of two director assistants : Andrew Marton and Sergiu Nicolaescu , both of whom experts on mass movements . In the film happens some historical happenings as Ostrogoths and Bizantine invasion over Rome . Equally , appearance of some important historical characters as Emperor Justinian stunningly played by Orson Welles , his greedy wife Theodora : Sylva Koscina , General Belisarius : Lang Jeffries and Narses : Michael Dunn.

It displays an atmospheric cinematography by Richard Angst , shot on location in Romania , Buftea studios , Bucharest and Germany, however , being really necessary a perfect remastering, because of the film copy is washed-up . As well as evocative musical score by Riz Ortalani . The motion picture was regularly directed by the prestigious filmmaker Robert Siodmak . This notorious German director emigrated to Hollywood when he made nice films , such as : "Phantom Lady" , "Son of Dracula" , "Christmas Holiday" , "The Suspect" , "The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry" , "The Dark Mirror" , "The Cobra Queen , "The Killers" , "The Spiral Staircase" , "Criss Cross" , "Cry the City" , "The File of Thelma Jordan" , "The Crimson Pirate" , "The Great Sinner" . Many years later , he returned to his native country where he made inferior films than those he released in Hollywood, such as : "The Devil Strikes at Night" , "Die Ratten" , "The Rough and the Smooth" , "Katia" , "The Yellow One" , "Custer of the West" , "Tunnel 28" , "My School chum", "A Matter of Minutes" , "Treasure of the Aztecs" and his last one , this "The Last Roman" .

In view of its imposing credentials, I had been looking forward to watching this one for some time; though I only managed to catch the condensed version of the two-part epic - shown on Italian TV as part of an Orson Welles marathon on Easter Sunday - it's still a worthwhile and enjoyable film of its type: choppily edited and disjointed in narrative, to be sure, but hardly incoherent. Incidentally, Welles participated in two other butchered spectacles around this time - THE BATTLE OF NERETVA (1969) and WATERLOO (1970); thanks to his larger-than-life persona, the heavy-set thespian was a regular feature of historical epics during the genre's heyday.

THE LAST ROMAN proved to be celebrated director Siodmak's final film: perhaps not the ideal swan-song for him as, apart from Honor Blackman's nasty bath-tub murder, there's little evidence of (or opportunity for) his trademark stylistics. In fact, I'd say that the film bears more the imprint of its producer Arthur Brauner - an expert in exotic exploitation (witness the very discreet, but entirely gratuitous, use of nudity) who had also been the force behind Fritz Lang's last films and would soon collaborate on a number of Jess Franco pictures. Nevertheless, this particular effort abounds in battle sequences that are moderately well-staged - and the plot is so replete with double-crosses, murders and switched allegiances that the viewer's full attention is required throughout; another typical asset of such films is the score and Riz Ortolani provides a serviceable one here.

Apart from the aforementioned Orson Welles and Honor Blackman, the cast is an eccentric mix of international and "Euro-Cult" stars - Laurence Harvey, Sylva Koscina, Michael Dunn, Harriet Andersson, Robert Hoffmann, Ingrid Boulting, Ewa Stroemberg, Lang Jeffries and Friedrich Ledebur; though mostly working below-par, none are especially demeaned by their role in the film (excepting Harvey's embarrassing hairstyle).

In the end, I'd love to check out the full-length version of STRUGGLE FOR ROME (as the original title of this German/Italian/Romanian co-production translates to) someday - but the possibility seems very remote at this stage...