Monday, January 7, 2013

Photo of the Day

Vittorio Gassman (holding cup), Anthony Quinn and Joe Robinson in BARABBAS

The gladiator part is the best part of this long film. Vittorio is very good in this and is often overlooked. Joe's role was ok but minimal. I wished his role had been more fleshed out as he's quite impressive in gladiator gear. As I said previously on this blog, Anthony, at 46, was too old for this role. He was great in anti-hero roles but his age made him less credible during the fighting scenes in this super-production. 

3 comments:

Steve R. Osulak said...

I gave this movie a rating of 7 out of 10. I saw this growing up in the movies and it was spectacular on the big screen, especially the solar eclipse during the crucifixion. My favorite character of this movie was the sadistic gladiator played by Jack Palance. His type of role.

Richard Svensson said...

Written by my fellow Swede Per Lagerquist, no less! The Swedish film industry did their own adaptation in the 1950's (I think), which was, of course, far more modest than the Hollywood version.

weenie man said...

yes, the solar eclipse was striking, de lauretiis waited for the real thing...and any gladiator arena scene at cinecitta gotta be good

the sound track utilized some new techniques with pre-syntho wack sounds and such...which by the way, coffin joe stole for his movie of the same name (to get really cinematically esoteric)