That was an excellent one.

It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

Cecil B. DeMille and others who made movies about Bibical and Early Christian subjects very well knew that they could get away with a lot more sex and violence in this type of picture. In The Sign Of The Cross Cecil B. pushes both to and over the limit that was allowable in the early talkie era.The basic plot is quite similar to the now better known Quo Vadis (1950): high-ranking Imperial Roman official (Fredrick March) falls madly in love with pious, aloof Christian girl (Elissa Landi) in the time of Nero's cruel persecution of Christians. The outcome in this earlier epic is quiet different and much grimmer.As with all of Cecil B.'s epic productions, The Sign Of The Cross is big, glossy, splashy, sexy, exotic, exciting, and tasteless. His extravaganzas are usually great fun, even in their tastelessness -- much in the same way the better spaghetti westerns are. This one unfortunately misses the fun angle with the tasteless angle unusually in the forefront. It is a very handsome production with sensuous black and white cinematography by Karl Struss, a rousing score credited to Rudolph G. Kopp, rich sets, and striking costumes -- especially those of Claudette Colbert (as the wicked Poppaea).As in other DeMille Bibical or early Christian epics, he attempts to contrast the purity and faithfulness of God's people with the empty, hedonistic debauchery of the pagans. Unfortunately the comparison here misses the intended mark. The Christians come off as grim and joyless, stoically awaiting death to deliver them into the Promised Land and never enjoying the peace, freedom, security and other blessings of leading a Christian life. On the other hand the scenes of debauchery, including the gorgeous Miss Colbert's famous (or infamous if you will) ass milk bath just make it look as if the pagans have all the fun and never suffer because of it.The violence of the arena scenes is incredible and disgusting for a movie of this era -- human beings decapitated, speared, forked, impaled, crushed by elephants, eaten by crocodiles, and raped by a gorilla. The camera continually panning to the crowd and showing the sadistic pleasure of the spectators heightens the horror of these scenes. Since most of this carnage is visited upon the followers of Christ, it will no doubt be much enjoyed by both gore hounds and Christian-hating modern-day pagans (known as New Agers, secular humanists, and atheists). My Christian bothers and sisters who doubt this need only read the message boards for The Sign Of The Cross and Quo Vadis.The Sign Of The Cross is not a good movie for most Christians. Along with the gross violence, there is much near and partial nudity, including bare breasts and see-thru dresses. A Christian girl is subjected to a lesbian assault, and other scenes picture implied lesbianism and homosexuality. Children and you more sensitive adult Christians will not want to watch this movie. It is loaded with exactly the type of sex and violence you are trying to avoid by watching old-timers like this instead of newer movies. True, the scenes of the Christians bravely meeting martyrdom with a hymn on their lips is moving, but this and the rest of the theme were done much better in Quo Vadis. Besides which Quo Vadis has a better-developed, more believable plot, better-cast leads, a better burning of Rome, a more fleshed out Nero, and it is an even more beautifully turned out production.Nevertheless, The Sign Of The Cross will be especially enjoyed by two other classes of modern pagans who are more sensuous than sinister. First that great mass of mostly young, simple-minded savages who worship the alluring goddesses Slutcia and Pervertcia and the great gods Gore and Bore. They will be thrilled to find in this ancient movie's gratuitous sex and violence the great-great-grandmother of the digital trashoramas now turned out by the hundreds just for them. The priests and priestesses of the great god Auteur (film class graduates) will lead them as they prostate themselves before a giant freeze-frame of Caludette's glorious ass milk scene and chant, "Pre-code....pre-code...pre-code...precode..."

THE SIGN OF THE CROSS (Paramount, 1932), directed by Cecil B. DeMille, returns its director to the genre to what he's best known, the religious spectacle, his first since THE KING OF KINGS (Pathe, 1927) starring H.B. Warner as Jesus the Christ. While this title certainly indicates another retelling into the life of Christ, the script, taken from an old play by Wilson Barrett, focuses more on Christians following in the teachings of Jesus years after His crucifixion, only to face suffering and prosecution for their faith.The setting is 64 A.D. where the Emperor Nero (Charles Laughton) is introduced playing his lyre while watching in laughter the flames raging through the city of Rome. Although responsible for starting the fire, Nero places the blame on the Christians, arranging for his guards to have them placed under arrest. His wife, Poppara (Claudette Colbert), is an adulteress whose only desire is the manly Marcus Superbus (Fredric March), a prefect of Rome, but cannot put her hold on him after learning from Dacia (Vivian Tobin) of his love for Mercia (Elissa Landi), a Christian girl. As much as Marcus believes "Christianity is stupid," he tries his best to persuade Mercia to renounce her faith and marry him. Tigellinus (Ian Keith), Marcus' rival, sees an opportunity in making trouble for them both.With crime dramas, drawing room comedies and/or social related issues as common theme during the Depression era, THE SIGN OF THE CROSS was something out of the ordinary. In true DeMille fashion, THE SIGN OF THE CROSS is not only a 128 minute spectacle with a three minute intermission in the midway point, but a large-scale production with lavish sets and cast of thousands accurately costumed according to its time structure. Of the performers in this Biblical story, Elissa Landi, the central character, seems out of place with her 1932 head-dress while Claudette Colbert, in her first "bad girl" role, quite evident with her lipstick and pencil drawn eyelashes, has her cherished moment bathing in a pool of milk gulped along side by two kittens at a distance. Fredric March as the Roman soldier who rules with the cracking of his whip, physically makes a convincing Marcus, though some of his badly scripted dialog, along with others in the cast, may provoke laughter for any contemporary viewer. Charles Laughton's Nero is exceptional, right down to his curly hair with added putty in the middle of his nose adding sharpness to his cruel facial expression. Although his scenes are regrettably limited, Laughton simply stands out, especially as he watches in sleepy-eyed boredom the slaughter of victims at the arena as he sits back eating large portions of food. Other members in the large cast include Tommy Conlan as Stephanus, the teenage Christian boy; Nat Pendleton, Arthur Hohl, Charles Middleton; lions, tigers, crocodiles and elephants as uncredited extras.As much as the plot was reworked into the MGM spectacle of QUO VADIS (1951) starring Robert Taylor as Marcus; with Deborah Kerr and Peter Ustinov giving a tour-da-force performance as Nero, nothing can compare with the intense arena sequence found in THE SIGN OF THE CROSS. Graphic, then and now, this sequence, along with "The Naked Moon" dance performed by the wicked Ancaria (Joyzelle Joyner), was all that was missing when THE SIGN OF THE CROSS was not only reissued to theaters in 1944, but when sold to commercial television around the 1960s. In its place was a ten minute prologue written by Dudley Nichols, set during World War II with the cast featuring Stanley Ridges (Chaplain Thomas Lloyd); Arthur Shields (Captain James Costello); James Millican (Captain Kevin Driscoll); William Forrest (Colonel Hugh Mason); Tom Tully (Hoboken); Oliver Thorndyke (Lieutenant Roger Hammond); and Joel Allen. The new opening revolves around bombardiers being assigned on a dangerous mission and heading out to their destination. As the airplane flies over the Colosseum, a discussion about to the prosecution of Christians under Nero's regime leads to a flashback and events that takes place. It wasn't until March 14, 1993, when American Movie Classics cable channel presented the original uncut 1932 theatrical release of THE SIGN OF THE CROSS that was obtained from the DeMille estate, and played it as part of AMC's initial Film Preservation Society festival. Without these missing scenes, THE SIGN OF THE CROSS would have been hopelessly dull and talkie, such as the case with the 1944 reissue that had circulated for nearly half a century. In 1995, Universal Home Video distributed the now uncensored 1932 version to home video and then to DVD in 2006. After AMC ceased airing THE SIGN OF THE CROSS in 1999, Turner Classic Movies picked up its option by airing this DeMille epic where it played from occasionally from 2004 to 2007. Regardless of its flaws, THE SIGN OF THE CROSS is prime DeMille, best suited for viewing during the season of Lent or Good Friday. Hail Caesar!! (***1/2)

1932 – the height of the depression, Paramount studios in financial straits, Hollywood's output limited to small-scale dramas and bedroom comedies – and Cecil B. DeMille decides to make an epic. There are many classics among the "small" pictures of the early-30s, but it's good to see that someone was, against all odds, still carrying the torch for grandeur and spectacle.Of course, Sign of the Cross is still an epic of its poverty-stricken time. There are no stupendous sets or masses of extras, but DeMille always knew how to make our eyes deceive us. A huddle of a dozen people filling the screen looks like a crowd. Five men on horseback shot from a low angle looks like a stampede. In the scene where Titus and Favius first meet, the camera wheels round and backs away at the same time, giving the impression that the street scene is much more than a cramped indoor set. And DeMille's use of lighting (here courtesy of Karl Struss who was Oscar-nominated for his efforts) really pays off, with fuzzy half-light and shadows disguising the lack of lavishness.Better yet, the constrained budget seems to have pushed DeMille to concentrating more on the poetry and beauty of what we see. Unable to dazzle us with scale or special effects, he makes full use of his talent for flowing, dreamlike imagery. Sign of the Cross features some of the smoothest camera-work and carefully choreographed movement of extras of this period. He even makes effective use of slow-motion with the pouring goats milk. DeMille was not the only director to turn to simple camera trickery when money was tight – Rouben Mamoulian's earliest pictures for example are end-to-end cheap tricks. It's just that DeMille is doing it better than almost everyone else – it adds sparkle to the picture without being distracting.But it's not just with the images that DeMille shows his talent. Unlike some directors who were sceptical about the coming of sound and tried to work around it, or some producers who naively thought it automatically made pictures twice as good, DeMille really explores the possibilities of sound. In an early scene, we cut to a close-up Elissa Landi while we hear from off-screen the calls of Romans searching for Christians. We see her reaction to the calls, and this is something that could not be achieved so succinctly in a silent movie. A more obvious example is the torture scene, where we hear the boy's screams, while the camera is pointed elsewhere. The point is, we do not need to see him being tortured because the scream alone has enough impact. However what we do see – the eagle of Rome, a sentry unconcernedly marching back and forth, a flaming torch – adds layers of meaning to the scene.Of course, this being DeMille, and it being the "pre-code" era, he also seeks to dazzle us with a bit of bare flesh and other assorted depravities. It's one of the great ironies of DeMille's work that his pictures often revel in the very "immorality" they seek to preach against. So the poster advertising the attractions at the Colloseum is as much to whet the appetite of the real-world audience as to show the barbaric tastes of the Roman one. DeMille spends ten minutes of screen time (not to mention more precious money on tin-hat manufacture and zoo rental fees) on the promised blood-fest, which can only be for our entertainment since it is inconsequential to the plot. And, in another bit of audio/visual juxtaposition, while the martyrs' chanting drowns out the "Naked Moon" song, it is the notorious Lesbian dance that DeMille shows us, not the Christians outside.The acting in Sign of the Cross is a bit of a mixed bag, although it is of a higher standard than many of the DeMille talkies. Charles Laughton is hammily brilliant, laying down a blueprint for Emperor Nero which Peter Ustinov would follow to a well-deserved Oscar-nomination in Quo Vadis (1951). However Laughton's part is fairly small, and the screenplay makes Claudette Colbert the real villain. Colbert is fantastic, playing the Empress as an ancient world vamp, giving by far the best performance of the bunch. It's almost a shame that It Happened One Night re-invented her as a major romantic lead, because she really was at her best when she played villains.The weakest link in Sign of the Cross, as with many DeMille pictures, is the screenplay. However DeMille's inventiveness, careful construction and strong imagery, not to mention the fact that his pictures are great fun if you don't take them too seriously, transcend the limpness of the script. It was perhaps because DeMille refused to allow his style to be compromised by a limited budget that makes many of his 1930s pictures among his greatest.

Many of the comments refer to the Colosseum. This is an error made by movie makers themselves. There were other sites for games in the early Roman Empire. The building of the Colosseum was finished in 80 AD. Nero died in 68 AD. It is actually the Flavian Amphitheatre. It was built partially on the site of Nero's House of Gold. This infamous palace complex had a large lake. The Colosseum was build over the remains of the lake bed. The name Colosseum refers to a large statue of Nero which was in this complex. The persecutions under his reign most likely took place in the Circus of Caligula/Nero on the site of the present day Vatican.