After having missed out on it twice on Italian TV as a kid, I finally managed to watch Cecil B. De Mille's THE SIGN OF THE CROSS. The plot line is very similar to that of "Quo Vadis?", a novel filmed numerous times along the years - as well as the later Italian spectacular FABIOLA (1948), by far the best of the innumerable 'peplums' which were made in its wake, and arguably better than most of Hollywood's own product.
As is to be expected, the director spices the inherent sermonizing with his trademark opulent vulgarity but the whole remains an impressive - and strangely compelling - piece of work, though the sluggish pacing may be trying on a modern audience. Despite its lack of subtlety (the Christians are portrayed as one ragged and immensely boring bunch, while the Romans are interested only in mayhem and debauchery), virtually a given of any De Mille film, the strong performances of the the three leads more than redress the balance: Fredric March and Charles Laughton are simply two of the finest actors to ever grace the screen with their incomparable talent, and Claudette Colbert matches them in the role which made her a star.
The film's much touted sadistic and erotic scenes, however, are not really all that explicit: the lesbian dance routine, for instance, is fairly hilarious and, apart from one grisly decapitation and the sight of a pygmy stuck on a sword, De Mille is content to present suggestive situations (like the famous shot of a naked girl menaced by a gorilla, or having crocodiles and lions lining up for the kill) and then let the audience imagine the rest. Let's not forget - this being a Pre-Code film - that Hollywood could get away with a great deal at this point in time, but this one certainly wasn't as bloodthirsty as I had been led to believe!
Another interesting point - and one which, as far as I can remember, differs from "Quo Vadis" (I haven't watched the spectacular 1951 MGM version, a childhood favorite of mine, for quite some time now!) - is that the Fredric March character doesn't sacrifice himself in the arena because he has finally embraced Christianity but merely because he desperately loves Elissa Landi and hopes to be re-united with her in the hereafter, as her religion maintains!
