The Epic That Never Was (TV 1967)The story of the aborted 1937 filming of "I, Claudius", starring Charles Laughton, with all of its surviving footage. |
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The Epic That Never Was (TV 1967)The story of the aborted 1937 filming of "I, Claudius", starring Charles Laughton, with all of its surviving footage. |
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| Complete credited cast: | |||
| Dirk Bogarde | ... |
Himself - Host /
Narrator
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Robert Graves | ... |
Himself - author of 'I, Claudius'
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| Josef von Sternberg | ... |
Himself - Director
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| Merle Oberon | ... |
Herself /
Messalina
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Flora Robson | ... |
Herself /
Livia
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Emlyn Williams | ... |
Himself /
Caligula
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John Abbott | ... |
Himself - Ms. Robson's Host
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Eileen Corbett | ... |
Herself - Script Girl
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John Armstrong | ... |
Himself - Costume Designer
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| Rest of cast listed alphabetically: | |||
| Charles Laughton | ... |
Claudius
(archive footage)
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| Robert Newton | ... |
Captain of Caligula's guard
(archive footage)
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The story of the aborted 1937 filming of "I, Claudius", starring Charles Laughton, with all of its surviving footage.
This is a good, entertaining and revealing document of the abandonment in mid-production of a film spectacle, begun in England in the mid-1930s, but which happily still saw the light of day thanks to the preservation of several reels of assembled footage in mint condition. Those involved in the production still alive by 1964 are interviewed with their slightly divergent points of view, and they are a colorful lot: Von Sternberg, Oberon, Emlyn Williams, Flora Robson. Dirk Bogarde is impeccable as the host-narrator who observes of Charles Laughton, immediately following a stunning monologue, that he was "kissed with genius." And so he was.