AHC: "Caligula" a Good Movie

Tom Colton

Tom Colton

"I have existed from the morning of the world, and am constant as the Northern Star...oh bugger, wrong Gaius Julius Caesar!"

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Having just watched a video review of the infamous 1976 production, Caligula by Vidal, Brass and Guccione, I can kind of see how and why it lives up to the reputation that it does, and much of its incoherence seems to have arisen from the multiple changing hands it went through. It's kind of a shame that those talented performers and massive sets essentially went into such an unpleasant piece of work.

With a PoD of Gore Vidal finishing his script, have Caligula go through a different production and post-production such that at the very least Roger Ebert manages to sit through the entire thing.
 
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NOMISYRRUC

"Sir John Gielgud, defending his appearance in the film Caligula, said that there was no mention of explicit sex and violence in the original pay check."

Not the Nine O'clock News, 1979.
 
joea64

joea64

Keep Bob Guccione strictly to the bankrolling role. I believe it was first and foremost his continual interference that turned "Caligula" into the infamous hardcore-sex/gornfest that we know it as. A better-organized, more stable production will still be notorious for its heaping helpings of explicit sex and bloody violence - as was, of course, the original rule of Caligula himself - but Guccione dialed it up way, way past eleven.
 
Michel Van

Michel Van

Caligula, what Hell of a Movie, really a Hellish Production !

Scrip writher Gore Vidal wanted "Ben Hur 2.0" with allot male Homosexual action, to horror of Producer Bob Guccione
Director Brass wanted Political satire movie and rewrite Vidal's screenplay, what get last very angry and Bob Guccione remove him from the Production.
and leading actors believed this just a Sandal movie like "Cleopatra" instead they end up in Scandal movie "Caligula"
in mean time first actress left the production do nudity, her role demanded.
Producer Bob Guccione wanted a Hardcore Movie and as Brass not made this, so Guccione took camera in hand and shoot extra scenes for movie to get R-rating...

in end they mess thing really up because they had too much footage, rumors claim Brass shoot hours of film for Caligula
Bass first edit were around 170 minute, what Bob Guccione brutal recut into 156 minute porno movie.

the biggest problems were
Bob Guccione obsession to make Porno movie with Hollywood actors,
A Scrip writher obsession on male Homosexuality
and Italian Director obsess to make a big Movie like ones of Federico Fellini...
 

overoceans

I read somewhere that Paul Morrissey, the right-wing Catholic filmmaker who got his start in Warhol's factory, was at one time considered for the director's chair of Caligula. That might have made for a more interesting morality play(not to mention more sublimated gay elements), though it wouldn't neccessarily prevent Guccione's reverse bowdlerization.
 

overoceans

desmirelle said:
Have either Mel Brooks or Woody Allen direct it.....oh, the directions we'll go!
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It actually wouldn't be too far-fetched to have Brooks PRODUCING Caligula, since his company did a few art films in that era, most notably The Elephant Man, and a few years later, The Fly, David Cronenberg's one foray into mainstream Hollywood. And he would not likely be inclined to push a bunch of porn scenes into the final cut, if only because his wife would likely be one of the performers!
 

NOMISYRRUC

Shanghai61 said:
It was sprayed with coffee.
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I'd like to spread the blame by implicating Richard Curtiss, who I think wrote it, the late Mel Smith for performing it and my father for buying the Not The Nine O'clock News cassette tape which I played to destruction. I did the same to my personal copy of the sequel, Hedgehog Sandwich.

IIRC it sold so well that it made the British album charts in 1980 and made the writers and performance a small fortune in the process. Rowan Atkinson who was also in the show said that he was able to buy an Aston Martin with his share of the royalties.

So here's another joke for the same show...

"In the Osmonds split-up Donny was awarded custody of the teeth."
 
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Shanghai61

I've always been troubled by the strength of desire I once had to punch a child very hard, although in my defence, the child in question was Little Jimmy Osmond.
 

yourworstnightmare

Banned
Michel Van said:
Caligula, what Hell of a Movie, really a Hellish Production !

Scrip writher Gore Vidal wanted "Ben Hur 2.0" with allot male Homosexual action, to horror of Producer Bob Guccione
Director Brass wanted Political satire movie and rewrite Vidal's screenplay, what get last very angry and Bob Guccione remove him from the Production.
and leading actors believed this just a Sandal movie like "Cleopatra" instead they end up in Scandal movie "Caligula"
in mean time first actress left the production do nudity, her role demanded.
Producer Bob Guccione wanted a Hardcore Movie and as Brass not made this, so Guccione took camera in hand and shoot extra scenes for movie to get R-rating...

in end they mess thing really up because they had too much footage, rumors claim Brass shoot hours of film for Caligula
Bass first edit were around 170 minute, what Bob Guccione brutal recut into 156 minute porno movie.

the biggest problems were
Bob Guccione obsession to make Porno movie with Hollywood actors,
A Scrip writher obsession on male Homosexuality
and Italian Director obsess to make a big Movie like ones of Federico Fellini...
Click to expand...

Not the best combination of people.
 

NOMISYRRUC

Malcolm McDowell was also in Royal Flash, one of my favourite films. So I would have Dick Lester direct it and Gerorge McDonald Fraser write the script. They were also the team that produced the version of Three Musketeers where Spike Milligan was married to Raquel Welch, but Milligan said it was only acting.

Or Gerald Thomas and Talbot Rothwell the director and writer of Carry on Cleo.

Both teams would produce an intentionally funny film and in case of the latter for less money.
 

NOMISYRRUC

It would have to be a very good film to be better than the TV version and John Hurt's performance of Caligula.

I couldn't find the clip in I Claudius where he's visited by the ghost of Caligula. So instead this is the bit where Jean Luc Picard is usurped by Gimli in the Lord of the Rings Films.


And this is a poor quality clip of Caligula's assasination.

 
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