The Last Days of Pompeii (1935)

Fresh off their monumental success with King Kong, producer Merian Cooper and director Ernest Schoedsack teamed again on The Last Days of Pompeii, another big-scale offering with a special-effects emphasis. Nominally based on the Bulwer-Lytton book, the film invents a new storyline much in the spirit of the Cecil B. DeMille religioso-melodrama school. Preston Foster plays a pacifist blacksmith whose life is ruined by fate; he turns his fighting skills to the gladiatorial arena and raises a foster son. A cameo appearance by Jesus Christ affects the boy but not the man, and it all comes a-cropper years later when Mount Vesuvius gets restless outside Pompeii's city limits. Fond childhood memories of the volcano's eruption should be tempered by the fact that the effects (designed by Kong man Willis O'Brien) are limited to the final 20 minutes of the film, and that the preceding 75 minutes are a slow ride indeed. This film's creakiness makes you appreciate how good DeMille was at whipping up entertainment out of historical yarns. One definite bright spot: Basil Rathbone, bringing his equine deliberation to the role of Pontius Pilate. --Robert Horton Amazon.com

The Last Days of Pompeii

Though this film strayed from actual facts, it was well made with it's special effects from the 1930's. All in all I enjoyed it once again after all the years that I first saw it and would recommend this film to be seen - owned by folks who like golden oldies. July 9, 2007

worth a look

fine acting, especially by rathbone. but for me, a movie that has the courage of it's convictions, regarding the very last scene, a scene that makes the movie a stand out. most religous movies would skirt the issue of repentance and showing of the Christ. not this one, which makes it very special in my book. April 8, 2007

Morality and Ashes.

Produced and ghost directed by Merian C. Cooper, THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII is a morality tale loosely based upon minor events in Sir Edward George Bulwer-Lytton's novel THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. The film stars Preston Foster as Marcus, a simple blacksmith of Pompeii. Marcus is a happy man. He has a beautiful wife and an energetic young son. Though the family doesn't have much money, Marcus is happy at his chosen career and what he has is enough. The man in charge of the arena thinks Marcus would make a formidable gladiator, but he can't seem to convince him to abandon his job as a blacksmith for more money. Marcus' wife and son are tragically run over by a runaway chariot. Unable to pay for medical care because of his modest means his family dies. The loss of his family fills Marcus with despair and fuels an ambition to gain wealth. Thus the second act of the film begins as Marcus begins his new life as a gladiator.

Marcus becomes the finest gladiator in the land, an unbeatable opponent. After one fatal match, Marcus discovers the boy of his fallen foe. The child is now an orphan. Reminded of his own dead son, Marcus adopts the boy as his own. To secure the boys' future and to insure that he will not have to fight in the arena, Marcus begins taking suspicious and dangerous assignments that pay him extremely well and help him become the Master of the Arena itself. While on one of these assignments to Judea, Marcus' son, Flavius is struck down in a freak accident. The child is healed and that encounter changes the boy's life forever. Marcus is grateful, but he is still tainted by the greed and ambition birthed from the grief of his wife and first son. Years later it is revealed that Flavius has been helping slaves and gladiators escape from Pompeii. Marcus is crushed, but loves his son so deeply that he will do everything in his power to protect him. Then the volcano erupts and judgment comes.

Hoping to capitalize on the success of KING KONG, Merian C. Cooper invested a great deal of time and money into this picture. Watching the film one can tell that it was an expensive picture to make (at the time). The sets are lavish and are quite reminiscent of a Cecil B. de Mille picture. The movie has some of the same religious overtones and morality of a de Mille picture, too. But a Cecil B. de Mille picture this is not. The screenplay is basically a morality play forced into the usual three-act structure. Foster does a decent job in his role, but he and everyone else in the cast is outshone by Basil Rathbone who portrays Pontius Pilate. Rathbone brings an element of humanity that is often lacked in other portrayals of the famed leader. He illustrates that arrogance of Pilate, but tempers it with sensitivity and a tortured conscious over his dealings with Jesus.

When it was initially released, THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII was a flop and the film had to be re-released several times (often as a double bill with King Kong) in order to earn back its cost. Over seventy years later, the movie hasn't changed much. It still comes off as being an average movie with one outstanding performance. For film buffs it's worth watching for Rathbone's performance. Anyone who likes big spectacle films might enjoy it as well as anyone who likes old-time Bible-type films. September 17, 2006

A movie with depth and style

I first saw this movie as a child in the 50's on TV and fell in love with it. My mother would let me cut school in order to see it on tv( and my family was not particularly religious), along with a number of others like Cyrano de Bergerac, Androcles and the Lion, Sign of the cross, and The High and the Mighty, and Captain Sirocco. I combed the tv guide once a week for classics like these. The redeeming quality of all of the movies I become attached to is "nobility". Aside from the awesome eruption of Vesuvius, and awesome it was for its day, and as thrilled as I am about the special effects and the disater movie perspective ....the story is simply ...Sublime.
Preston Foster, in typical post silent era acting style, plays Marcus - with dash and bravura. Marcus is a simple, humble man. He is completely contented with his life as a blacksmith and has a wife and son he cherishes, everything any man could hope for. He is quickly reminded of the foolishness of his take on life by a jaded slave dealer and a kindly but skeptical roman patrician who gives his son a gold coin. Marcus and his wife Julia close shop for the day and set out to celebrate the windfall by purchasing a ball too big for the tiny grasp of his small child. The fates intervine... the ball rolls into the street and Julia and the infant are over run by a speeding chariot. So the saga begins, brilliantly, with such irony, the gift and joy of a gold coin and a new toy leading to a tragedy as Marcus' wife and child both die. Marcus now impoverished, and a broken man.....having given up his ideals and sense of morality to fight in the gladitorial arena, as the only way to get the money he needed to try and get medical help for his family and with nothing left of his former life to live for embraces a new view of life and the Gods he once loved. A world weary and newly cynical Marcus becomes a Gladiator commenting "it's easy to get money. All you have to do...is Kill". Thru success after success in the gladitoral arena he becomes a famous man, a formerly detested slaver, and thru' clever manipulation of events and opportunities , ultimately head of the Arena itself. During one of his triumphs in the arena he meets the son of a fallen foe named The Wolf. Distraught at the appearance of the young boy waiting for his fathers victory he reluctantly asks if the boy knows what happens to people when they die. Marcus overwhelmed by guilt and reemorse asks the child if he would like to become his son. The child agrees and a new life centered around this child emerges as he lives his life now to make up for taking the life of the boys father and to give the boy every opportunity in life. While in Judea the young boy is struck down in an accident and he is healed by the Christ, a moment of passion in this film that foeshadows Christs own travails later in the movie, and the dilema put forth to Marcus to intervene. One of the hallmarks of this film is Pontius Pilate, played with sensitivity, grace, and remarkable understatement by the great Basil Rathbone. This one of the truly remarkable small parts in movie history. Totally unforgetable and worth the watch of the film, if for no other reason.This film goes on and on with jewels of philosophical wisdom from a kindly Greek tutor, plentious action, and an intelligent and intriguing perspective on the spiritual defeat and then reawakening of the magnificent and earnest Marcus. Who in the end makes the right decisions for the right reasons. I NEVER get tired of watching this movie! It is one of my top 20 all time favorites! July 2, 2005

Sheer class from Basil Rathbone

Movies are movies .Books are books .So we should not be too suprised when film makers make changes to novels during the process of tranferring them to the screen .Thus it is that all the movie versions of the Bulwer-Lytton minor classic have concentrated on the relatively unimportant gladiatorial sub plot ,bringing it centre stage .
This is so here in this mid thirties version which really only utilises the book's title and its climax ,the destruction by volcanic activity of the titular city.Its centre is an invented tale ,wholly divorced from the novel, of Marcus ,a blacksmith whose obsession with power and wealth leads him to a state of spiritual poverty.Even when ,while on a visit to Judea.his stricken son is healed by Christ ,Marcus is not sufficiently moved to come to the aid of Christ in his hour of crucifixion .It is not till his city is engulfed by lava that he finds his spiritual awakening.
Preston Foster is adequate as Marcus but a towering performance by Basil Rathbone as Pilate dominates the movie.We see him as a clever ,arrogant but essentially decent man tortured by his capitulation over the crucifixion and the realisation that what he did ,or did not do ,may damn his name throughout time.

The destruction of the city is capably done but is not Willis O'Briens best work by a long chalk .
The mixture of decadence and piety is very reminiscent of the Biblical epics of de Mille .
De Mille did this type of thing with more flair but this will do if you like vintage historical drama September 29, 2003

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