Demetrius and the Gladiators (1954)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	Theatrical Trailer
Rating
Year Of Production	1954
Running Time	97:01 (Case: 96)
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (42:24)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Delmer Daves
Studio Distributor	Twentieth Century Fox	Starring	Victor Mature Susan Haywood Jay Robinson Debra Paget
Case	?
RPI	$36.95	Music	Franz Waxman

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 4.0 L-C-R-S (384Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.55:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.55:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	Czech Danish English for the Hearing Impaired Finnish Hebrew Hungarian Icelandic Norwegian Polish Portuguese Swedish Turkish	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    This is the tale of a soldier who became a slave, a slave who became a gladiator, and a gladiator who openly challenged the power of a cruel Roman Emperor from within the arena. Sound familiar?

    Okay, I'll admit it -- I LOVE gladiator movies. Gladiator (2000) is the No.1 DVD in my Top Ten. I also own other classics such as Spartacus (1960) and Ben-Hur (1959). The clash of swords and the roar of the fickle Roman crowd is oft heard echoing from my home theatre.

    Demetrius And The Gladiators (1954) is a worthy sequel to The Robe (1953), and a sword n' sandal epic in its own right. (Best remembered as the quintessential biblical epic of the 1950s, you can read my review of The Robe here.) Demetrius is one of those very rare sequels, in that it is far better than the original movie.

    Demetrius picks up the story from where The Robe finished. In fact, it opens with the final scene from The Robe. Demetrius (Victor Mature) is given the task of secretly transporting Christ's robe to safety. This task is made difficult by the nasty Emperor Caligula (Jay Robinson) who wants the robe for himself. (That impetuous man -- he was offered the robe in the first movie and turned it down). Caligula sends soldiers after Demetrius.

    Demetrius (a former soldier and slave), defies the Emperor, and he ends up as a gladiator in the arena. Demetrius is at first uncooperative, and doesn't want to kill, but soon he must to stay alive. The movie discards the heavy-handed Christian propaganda that weighed down the Robe and cuts loose (so to speak). Demetrius engages in some serious blood lust, much to the delight of the Roman crowd. In the arena Demetrius is set upon by tigers, and by other gladiators. After Demetrius insults the Emperor, Caligula orders a retired champion back into the ring to take care of him. Demetrius soon learns that if he can win over the crowd, he may be able to win his freedom, and gain his revenge.

    While Mature is as wooden as ever, the supporting actors shine. Messalina is played to devious and sultry perfection by Susan Hayward. Jay Robinson reprises his role as Caligula, and he once again manages to squeeze every drop of campy b****iness out of it. As a 50s epic movie, we are again treated to lavish sets, lavish costumes and pure CinemaScope spectacle. Delmer Daves' direction is superb, and he fills every corner of the ultra-widescreen image (a problem with The Robe was that large portions of the background were often 'empty'). The other great thing about Demetrius is that the pace of the movie has been lifted considerably, compared with the original movie. The Robe ran for over two hours, and had trouble supporting its length, Demetrius runs for a little over an hour an a half, with a well-paced and enjoyable story.

    AHhhhh the clash of swords will be ringing in my house for some time to come.

Video

    Considering the age of the source material, the transfer is quite good.

    The Robe (1953), was the first movie released in CinemaScope. The sequel, Demetrius, follows suit, and the transfer is presented in the ultra-widescreen aspect ration of 2.55:1, 16x9 enhanced. This aspect ratio really suits this epic movie, and scenes such as the gladiators in the arena at 31:14 take full advantage of the scope.

    The sharpness of the image is variable. While the image is usually reasonably sharp, at times some of the characters on the sides of the screen appear very soft, for example, Claudius' face at 6:49 or Messilina's face at 50:47. The black level and shadow detail are more than reasonable considering the age of the source material. The image is grainy throughout, and often becomes very grainy and dark just before and just after a scene change (when the movie fades to black).

    The colour is also variable. While at times it appears muted or washed-out with age, at other times a rich palette of colours is on display, with deep reds and bright blues.

    MPEG artefacts were visible, but as they were very slight, sometimes they were hard to distinguish from problems with the grainy source material. At times there did appear to be a very, very mild posterization on some of the faces, for example at 75:20. There also appeared to be some very, very mild macro-blocking at times, such as on the stone wall in the background at 91:37.

    There is very mild aliasing throughout, and it usually takes the form of the sort of shimmer that appears on the overhead ropes at 14:27.

    Film artefacts appear constantly throughout the movie. Most are very small, but occasionally they are large blotches or scratches. Examples can be seen at 38:17 where there are quite a few on-screen at the same time. Again, one must consider the age of the print.

    Edge enhancement was evident occasionally, such as the white halos around the characters at 30:54 and 47:04.

    There are twelve sets of subtitles present on this DVD, and the English subtitles are accurate.

    This is a RSDL disc, with the layer change placed during Chapter 7, at 42:24. It is very smooth and as it is between scenes, it is not disruptive.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    As with The Robe, the original CinemaScope version had what was known as '4-track-stereo', but the movie was later re-released with 6-track sound for the 70mm version.

    This DVD only has one audio track, an English Dolby Digital 4.0 track (L - C - R - Mono Surround), which sounds similar to Dolby Digital stereo-surround.

    The dialogue quality and audio sync are reasonable, although at times I found the dialogue a little soft. Like The Robe and some other movies from this genre, this movie uses directional dialogue, which has since gone out of style. For example, at 8:33 St. Peter stands and speaks on the extreme right-hand side of the screen. His voice emanates from the right speaker. At 8:50 he walks toward the centre of the screen, and his voice moves from the right to the centre speaker. While at times this approach is effective, for example when characters speak to each other from either ends of the screen, it is often distracting as one is not used to it.

    The musical score is credited to Franz Waxman, but it also makes extensive use of the themes from The Robe by Alfred Newman. It is your standard 50s epic, overly melodramatic, orchestral score which suits the movie well.

    The surround presence and activity is rather bizarre. The surrounds are called upon at 2:44 for a thunder storm, and then remain silent until 35:01 and 61:20 where they are called upon again to provide some ambience for the arena crowd. The surround sound mix almost re-defines 'front-heavy'. The use of sound in these arena scenes is great, but it is distracting, as the movie only provides these occasional bursts of sound from the rear speakers.

    Like a naughty child, the subwoofer is made to sit in the corner and be quiet, but very rarely there did appear to be some re-directed bass, such as when the dungeon grate growls to a close at 37:44.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    The extras are slim, but again one must consider that this movie is almost fifty years old. Perhaps a documentary about Victor Mature, or movies of this era would have been a nice touch?

Menu

    A very simple menu, presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, 16x9 enhanced. It is static and silent.

Theatrical Trailer  (3:06)

    Fairly representative of 50s epic movie advertising, this trailer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, 16x9 enhanced, with Dolby Digital stereo audio.

    Demetrius was released on DVD in Region 1 in February 2002.

The Region 4 DVD misses out on:

• French Dolby Digital 2.0 (mono) sound track.
• English Dolby Digital stereo surround-encoded sound track.
• Trailers for the movie in Spanish, French and German.
• Additional trailers for Titus, The Longest Day, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Patton, and The Last of the Mohicans.

The Region 1 DVD misses out on:

• Dual-layer disc.
• 9 sets of subtitles

    Again Region 4 consumers have been treated to a RSDL disc, thus I would favour the local release for its dual-layers, affordability, and superior PAL image.

    Unlike The Robe, its sequel Demetrius And The Gladiators is far more interested in entertaining rather than preaching to the audience. A great 50s movie spectacle, Demetrius is an enjoyable sword n' sandal epic in it own right. I (and the Roman crowd) give it the 'thumbs-up'.

    The video quality is acceptable considering the age of the source material.

    The audio quality is also acceptable considering the age of the source material..

    The extras (or should that be 'extra') are very slim.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall