Caligula (1979)
Image
Director: Tinto Brass
Written By: Gore Vidal
Starring: Malcolm McDowell, Helen Mirren, John Steiner & Peter O’Toole

Review by Phillip Escott

The rise and fall of Rome’s most perverted and psychotic emperor, Gaius Germanicus (Malcolm MacDowell): Caligula to his friends and family. It’s also one of cinema’s greatest mishaps. Starting from his younger days as a Prince, right up to his complete mental breakdown and eventual death, Tinto Brass brings a lot of truth and whole lot of fiction to the table. Caligula’s incestuous relationship with his sister is here, his love for his horse is here but his love of men is left at the door. Those familiar with Roman history will find many, many issues with the film, those who haven’t will enjoy waiting for the next shock-sequence to scar their minds.

Lavish production values, Oscar winning actors, a director on top of his game and produced by one of the wealthiest men in porn. What the hell did people expect? When you have someone like Bob Guccione involved with a movie, he’s not going to be happy with ass, muff and balls: He’s going to want the whole sha-bang… and by golly, the whole sha-bang was had. Only available in its truncated 90 minute form for many years, Image have finally released the longest cut released to date (talks of a film running at a staggering 210 minutes have yet to be proven), which re-installs all of the much talked about hardcore action.

Of course, none of the quality actors get down to the nitty-gritty and do not go pass full frontal, aside from a random scene that has Malcolm MacDowell urinate on the floor?, all the hardcore was filmed later and inserted by the producer and it shows. The film does appear to exist only to provide viewers with nothing other than shock, be it the giant ‘head clipper’ that is created to lob the heads off of traitors (a very cool device), to copious amounts of incestuous loving (including a three-some with Caligula, his sister and his wife: played by the lovely Helen Mirren!) and the rather nasty fisting of some poor soldier who was unfortunate enough to be loved by a woman who Caligula wanted for himself – nice!

If sleaze if your bag, Caligula has it all… and then some! Just don’t expect the attention of detail to be up there with the likes of HBO’s Rome.

• Screen Format: 16 x 9 anamorphic (1:85.1)
• Audio: English Mono, English 5.0 Surround Sound
• Running Time: 156 minutes

• Image has provided fans with the Holy Grail with this release. 3-discs of joy, though you can’t help feeling let down with the exclusion of the OST which was originally planned. The first disc has the hardcore edit of the film and some trailers. The second disc features a brand-new cut of the film that removes the porn and features an easier watch (adding new scenes and removing others); it also includes three (!) audio commentaries and a load of deleted/extended scenes. The final disc features interviews and featurettes: The interview with John Steiner is interesting as he covers his work in the Italian exploitation industry. It’s a DVD choke full of extras, to list them all would take up an entire page!
  
  Included are some extensive liner notes that help cover some of the more pressing issues like, why the hell do people enjoy the movie? It’ll help you ease your mind knowing you’re not the only fan of this oddity.

Caligula is a dirty, dirty movie that makes the viewer feel even dirtier for looking so beautiful. It’s a one of a kind movie that would never happen in this day and age – which should add a certain appeal to those with an alternative taste in movies. It’s no doubt a flawed production, with confusion rising from unannounced jumps in time and shifts in location, but when some sweet hotties start chowing down on each others nether-regions you’ll soon discover you don’t really care about plot holes.

“Titties, titties, titties!”