Hollywood’s Ancient Worlds.

By Jeffrey Richards.

New York, London: Continuum, September 2008. Cloth: ISBN 978-1847250070, $29.95. 227 pages.

Review by Laurence Raw, Baskent University, Ankara

Hollywood’s Ancient Worlds chronicles the history of ancient epics, from the Victorian period to the present, beginning with melodramas in the British and American theater and culminating in recent cinematic examples of the genre such as Troy (2004) and 300 (2007).

It begins by showing how notions of the ancient world—more precisely expressed as Greek, Roman, or Biblical societies—achieved a peak of popularity during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries through the work of artists such as Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema and Gustave Doré. Sir Henry Irving even engaged Alma-Tadema as designer on productions such as Cymbeline (1896) and Coriolanus (1901). Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree enjoyed three of his greatest stage successes with Herod (1900), Ulysses (1902), and Nero (1906). Richards argues that such productions appealed to popular dramatic tastes: “Performance and visual imagery combined to create a popular memory of history, but one which looked to romance, myth and melodrama for inspiration rather than to academic research” (18). By 1916 this genre had all but died out, as audiences turned to the cinema rather than the theater. However, George Bernard Shaw did enjoy one of his greatest successes with the mythic adaptation of Pygmalion (1914).

Richards really gets into his stride once he begins to discuss cinematic reconstructions of the ancient world. Megalomaniac producers such as Cecil B. de Mille revived something of Victorian spectacle by portraying the life of Christ in King of Kings (1927): “It [the film] is certainly taking the story into a new dimension but it should not be overlooked that the film is securely based in the existing traditions of Christian music and Christian art” (38). In the era of the talkies, De Mille’s Cleopatra reflected 1930s values in its combination of art-deco design and luxuriant orientalism.

Richards divides his analysis of ancient epics of the 1950s and 1960s into three sections: the Roman Empire, the Bible, and Greece and Egypt. Many of the films discussed are very familiar—Quo Vadis (1951), Spartacus (1959), and Cleopatra (1963). However, Richards is nothing if not thorough in his research: lesser-known films such as The Prodigal (1953), Helen of Troy (1955), and The Story of Ruth (1960) are also included. Several themes emerge from his analysis: the majority of epics during this period made political statements about America during the McCarthy era, focusing in particular on issues of democracy and free speech. This was hardly surprising, as several screenplays were penned by blacklisted writers. Most ancient epics established an aural paradigm: the good guys were played by clean-cut white Americans (Robert Taylor, Kirk Douglas, Jeff Chandler), while their adversaries were invariably performed by Britons, whose cut-glass accents could well express sadistic intentions (think of Peter Ustinov’s Nero in Quo Vadis). Several films proved box-office bonanzas: Ben Hur (1959) almost single-handedly guaranteed MGM’s future as a producing studio. However, the critical reaction was not always so enthusiastic: Richards quotes several British reviewers whose choice of epithets was often depressingly predictable (“boring,” “three hours of vulgarity,” “atrocious,” “vast, loud [and] awful”). He argues that reviewers disliked the genre’s emphasis on excess; they preferred “documentary realism, literary quality and a middle-class improvement ethic” (54). I suggest there was a tangible anti-American tone to many British reviewers’ observations, almost as if they believed that ancient history had somehow been devalued once it had been given the Hollywood treatment. Not that the filmmakers themselves took much notice: De Mille freely admitted that his pictures had corn, and he was proud of it (112).

By the mid-1960s the fashion for the genre had passed, as audiences gradually became more specialized in their tastes, while the old studios (which had freely squandered millions of dollars on casting and sets) were gradually superseded by independent producers. Ancient epics remained in the doldrums until 2000, when Ridley Scott’s Gladiator cleaned up at the box-office and won a clutch of Oscars into the bargain. This film provoked a spate of imitations, including Wolfgang Peterson’s Troy (2004), which Richards identifies as a criticism of George W. Bush’s presidency, as it adopts a stance of opposition to aggressive, imperialistic wars (179).

The book ends rather abruptly with an analysis of the BBC/HBO miniseries Rome (2006-7), which combines politics and domestic drama with a liberal dose of sex in its infinite variety. I’d have welcomed some kind of conclusion, drawing together the various themes running throughout the book and offering some pointers as to how the genre might develop in the future (if it has a future, that is—Richards is particularly scathing about films like 300, which he calls “a comprehensive celebration of Fascist ideology” (184)). But perhaps Richards was constrained by the strict word-limit imposed on the volume, which he claims prevented him from discussing comic ancient epics such as Roman Scandals (1930), Carry on Cleo (1964), or Monty Python’s Life of Brian (1979). Hollywood’s Ancient Worlds is an entertaining book offering a comprehensive guide to a genre whose combination of “spectacle, action, conflict, inspiration and larger than life characters” proves irresistible to filmmakers and filmgoers alike (195).