Messalina, Messalina!

First off, "Messalina, Empress of Rome", is not the original title of this movie, and neither is "Caligula, the sins of Rome". These are both titles given to the original 1977 movie, "Messalina! Messalina!". It was re-titled for the video market in 1991 and 1994. The very cool thing about this movie is that it features almost all the sets and props used in the 1980 Classic, "Caligula". Caligula was actually shot in 1976, but because of various lawsuits, wasn't released until February 1980. The Co-Producer of Caligula, Franco Rossellini, decided in early 1977 to use the sets and props left-over from Caligula and shoot a quickie. He cast 2 actresses from Caligula, Anneka di Lorenzo and Lori Wagner, for the new movie, and then brought in a whole new crew to help out. It's true this movie isn't the best, it's dubbed from the Italian, it's grainy, but it is definatley a fun watch. There are some very funny scenes, some nice boobies, and a bit of a story to keep things interesting. You really get to see the Caligula sets, designed by Danilo Donati, much better than in Caligula, and that in itself is worth the price of admission. For more info, check out the official Caligula fan site, listed on this page! Cheers!

I like 1970s sexploitation like the best of them. Nudity, violence, an historic setting, a baseline plot ....all supposed to be here. The boxing and the reviews therefore led me to rip open the DVD box "Messalina" and "Messalina 2" with some excitement.

Sadly this flick just flatlines. It is a series of poorly connected scenes with an occasional soft-core pop up thrown in. The nudity is actually very modest. There is no violence (contextural or gratuitous)- only a jarring comical edge. There has been reasonable expenditure on sets for this sort of flick- but this is no Malcolm McDowell's Caligula. It is an historical and cinematic rag n' bone sale.

Frankly my dears I would give this a wide berth......

Italian comedies from the 1970s can best be compared as a hotchpotch of the „Carry On"-films and slapstick ala „Naked Gun": fast talking, grimacing, physical comedy – basically, it's the old "man steps on a rake"-joke, over and over again. "Messalina, Messalina" is not exception from the norm, with the exception, that the film contains more nudity. Lots and lots of nudity and, the film being all about the Empress Messalina cheating on her husband, Emperor Claudius (the successor of Emperor Caligula, so don't be fooled by the alternative title "Caligula 2"), some of the sex-scenes, depending on the copy you own, trespassing from soft- to hardcore.

Among the most popular spaghetti-comedies, were those featuring Bud Spencer and Terence Hill – the Italian version of Laurel and Hardy, if you so want. There's no Spencer and no Hill in this film (both, presumably, having fought tooth and nail against appearing in a film like "Messalina, Messalina"). Instead, we get Thomas Milan and Bombolo. Both go through the routine, but it's never more than that: routine.

In addition to the gratious nudity, the film features a battle-scene, which has enough gore and limb-hacking to rival the violence of "Gladiator". Interesting trivia: much of the set and costumes (not to mention some of the actors like Lori Wagner and Anneka Di Lorenzo) have been borrowed from the set of Bob Guccione's "Caligula", so for fans of this notorious epic, the film remains worthwhile curiosity with an eerie sense of Deja-Vu.

In essence, the film has very few qualities worth mentioning … unless, of course, you're a fan of flat Italian comedy or came here for the nekkid girls.

3/10

first off-don't expect anything to do with the original caligula. this is an italian comedy version which uses left over sets from that production. messalina is the emperor of romes wife and spends much of the film in a variety of sex scenes. there is a lot of genuinely funny parts in this film-mainly due to the truly awful english dubbing. before seeing this film i was unaware that romans spoke with strong american accents and called each other babe! to top it all off the film ends with a long gore scene which was very surprising although this too is done in a humorous way. this is worth picking up if you see the dvd for sale cheap although beware-the picture quality of the dvd is pretty crummy.

Partly due to the fact that it was Italian, partly because of the title, partly because it also starred Lori Wagner and Anneka Di Lorenzo, and partly because it used sets leftover from the Tinto Brass epic, I fully expected 'Messalina, Messalina!' to be a gratuitously sleazy rip-off of the infamous 'Caligula', in the vein of Bruno Mattei's 'Caligula and Messalina' or Joe D'Amato's 'Caligula 2: The Untold Story'.

I certainly didn't expect a desperately unfunny sex/comedy with dreadful slapstick humour, awful dubbing (Messalina sounds like Mae West!), wacky characters and the occasional fart joke. Which is a shame, 'cos that's (almost) exactly what I got!

Messalina (Anneka Di Lorenzo), wife of Emperor Claudius, is an insatiable nymphomaniac who screws all and sundry behind her husband's back. When she meets hunky Gaius Silius (Lino Toffolo), who somehow resists her sexual advances, she becomes determined to get him in the sack—even if it means conspiring to overthrow Claudius.

Despite plenty of nudity from Di Lorenzo, an hour into this laugh-free mess of a movie and I was tempted to turn the film off to save myself twenty minutes more suffering. But I struggled on, and, to be honest, I was actually glad that I did because, ten minutes before the end, the whole shebang gets a whole lot more entertaining, with a scene of OTT gore that (almost) makes watching the film worthwhile.

In the blood-drenched finale, the Praetorian guard are sent to massacre Messalina and her cohorts, and the result is a surprisingly fun ending to an otherwise execrable film. People are hacked to pieces, and blood sprays all over the place; with body parts everywhere and the floor covered in blood, this moment reminded me of the 'lawnmower' sequence in Peter Jackson's Braindead.

It's just a shame that in order to get to it, I had to subject myself to so much dross.

As a rule, the inclusion of hot nekkid chicks will (almost) always guarantee that a film will not get 1/10 from me, but 'Messalina, Messalina!' was shaping up to be an exception to that rule. However, thanks to the outrageous and messy gore in the closing moments, it winds up getting 3/10. All hail messy gore!