Dee Mou This film is PERFECTLY cast and has the perfect balance of drama and logic to keep things going from beginning to end. The COSTUMES and sets are all absolutely amazing and it makes perfect sense that so many members of the cast from this film were "stollen" to be part of the cast for Franco Zeffirelli's Jesus of Nazareth a decade later! There are quite a few staggered plot twists, compliments of my faves, Omar Shariff and Sophia Lauren as well as a few others -- no spoilers!!!!

raymond_chandler Movies like "Southland Tales" are so irredeemably bad that re-watching them could lead directly to insanity and loss of life. Movies like "The Fall of the Roman Empire" can be very enjoyable if one gets properly blazed and mocks them endlessly during a second (or third) viewing, MST3K style.Wow, does this film suck. The cast is the most bizarre collection of mismatched acting styles and accents ever assembled. Techniques like filming Alec Guinness talking to Death in voice-over while wandering around his chambers alone, grimacing, fall flat and become downright painful to watch. By contrast, Ingmar Bergman turned a chess match between Death and Max von Sydow into one of the most brilliant films ever made. Sophia Loren gets the same treatment near the end, but her scene actually becomes so surreal that it borders on hallucination, as she pines for Stephen Boyd in voice-over as she wanders through a giant set crammed with extras from the "Matrix II" Rave in Zion.The plot of "Fall" is rooted solidly in historical fact. It is more or less the same as the plot of Ridley Scott's far superior "Gladiator". Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius (Guinness, doing what he can and gracefully making an early exit from this disaster) decides to bequeath the Title of Emperor to General Livius (Boyd), instead of his son, Commodus (Christopher Plummer, giving one of the two performances that I thoroughly enjoyed). Commodus and Livius are best buds, as evidenced by the early scene of the pair simultaneously quaffing wine from upraised wine-skins. This scene is the highlight of the entire movie, and qualifies as Gayest Scene Ever in a mainstream movie made before 1965.Boyd is Boyd, and that ain't good. His individual line readings seem adequate, but the sum total is a hollow, good-looking, thoroughly rehearsed nothing. Sophia Loren as Commodus' sister Lucilla gets tossed into the same pit by the script, and John Ireland is reduced to playing the role of barbarian leader Ballomar as a grunting stereotype wearing a series of hilarious wigs.James Mason as adviser to Aurelius and Greek former slave Timonides acquits himself the best of anyone. His natural acting style of stage-bound histrionics fits the film perfectly, and he is given a few showcase scenes. Like Guinness, he ignores the fact that the script of "Fall" is a cliché-ridden joke, and dutifully builds a character of noble grace and moral strength.The script: UGH. The material is inherently dramatic, as Emperor Aurelius attempts to unite the disparate kingdoms of the Roman Empire into a peaceful confederation. Perhaps the screenwriters were too concerned with the history, and not enough with the dialogue. There is little or no subtext, and very few memorable lines. Plummer plays with the words and makes them his own. Boyd rents them and then abandons them.On paper, this should have been a great flick. It features a cast to rival "Spartacus", and a director who has done very good work elsewhere. I blame the script and the cinematography. The battle scenes are terrible, and the general level of the entire enterprise is about the same as the Steve Reeves/Reg Park Hercules sword and sandal epics of this same period. Indeed, I would rate Mario Bava's "Hercules in the Haunted World" as a much better movie. It is cheese also, but cheese delightfully elevated by being served on a platter of bravura cinematic style, with a main course of beefcake.

writers_reign Someone once said that Raymond Chandler inherited the mantle of Dahiell Hammet and dyed it a deeper shade of crimson; the remark was, of course, intended as a compliment to Chandler's talent, ability, and skill. To reverse the compliment I would say that Stephen Boyd inherited the solid mahogany of Edmund Purdom and added a few knotholes of his own. To hand him what is virtually the lead role of a multi-million dollar spectacle is on a par with handing Tiny Tim the leading role in the biopic of Paul Robeson. Not that this oven-ready turkey needs much help in stinking up the screen. Ironically in terms of historical accuracy it tests high, probably something like 80% but where it falls down is in the thesping department with Christopher Plummer leading from the front and flaunting his Gold Medal from the Charles Laughton Academy of York Hams, with a distinguished group - Guiness, Mason, Porter, Sharif et al slugging it out for Silver and Bronze. To say dire is praise indeed.

Dalbert Pringle In my opinion, if what went on in this epic, $19 million, fiasco production was really supposed to be the way that the Romans carried on, then it's certainly no wonder, to me, why their precious, little empire fell.With all of the horrendously treacherous back-stabbing, betrayal and hypocrisy that prevailed, I'm actually very surprised that Rome didn't fall long before this.Set in the year 180 A.D., this film (with all of its grandiose, large-scale pomp & pageantry) shamelessly promised major historical events to unfold before the viewer's very eyes - But, unfortunately, it got seriously side-tracked and became "Hollywoodized" into a frickin' weepy, clinging, sappy "love story". (Ho-Hum!) This film's running time was a staggeringly unbearable 188 minutes! Featuring some truly amazing sets (plus 100s of extras, horses, chariots, and plenty of parading around saying "Hail, Caesar!"), it took this film's story 45 minutes of senseless gabbing (amongst its envious characters) to finally get to its very first battle scene. And by that time my interest in all of this utter nonsense had seriously waned to the point of numbed indifference.I found that I couldn't give a sweet damn about any of the characters here, including Alec Guinness's Marcus Aurelius who came across to me as being just a much younger version of his Obi-Wan-Kenobi character from Star Wars.In this story, the ego-driven actors either over-acted their parts, or else they under-acted - But, never once did any of them come across, to me, as being "real people". Whoever they were portraying in the story may have been considered big & great in their day, but their gutless performances rendered each and every one of them as small & petty to the max.Needless to say, this "Sword & Sandal" epic was a box-office failure. It only managed to make back but one-tenth of its $19 million costs upon its initial release back in 1964.This film's once-wealthy producer, Samuel Bronston (known for backing such expensive films as 1961's King Of Kings and El Cid), went bankrupt as a result of this film and was pretty much never heard from (in the movie business) ever again.Personally, I would never recommend this dreary picture to anyone. If it was skillfully edited down by a least an hour, then, perhaps, its entertainment value could be much more tolerated and appreciated.*Trivia note* Actress Sophia Loren, who played Lucilla, was the highest paid cast member, receiving an undeserved $1 million for her part.