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Demetrius is a Greek guy who has to go to gladiator school in Rome. He is a
Christian and this causes problems when he has to "contend not only with the
swordsmen and wild beasts of the arena, but also the evil and sensuous
Messalina". He also has to deal with Caligula who is described as a "mad
emperor". 1954, 102 minutes, Widescreen, DVD
Nine months after Richard Burton was harassed into becoming a Christian by a
red beach towel in The Robe, Hollywood decided it was time to take Jesus' favorite outfit out of mothballs
for another go around and sicced Demetrius And The Gladiators on us. Since this whole Christian thing worked out so well for Burton and
co-star Jean Simmons (you might recall they ended up on the wrong end of the
archery field at the end of the last episode), it was left to Victor Mature to
run around squawking about this robe and how it can just butt out of his life
when things get dicey. Perhaps recognizing as an actor, Vic is very tan, the
producers surrounded him with a supporting cast that includes the likes of Susan
Hayward, Ernie Borgnine, and Jay Robinson. What this gives us is, is probably
the
cast with the collection of the most annoying voices that doesn't involve
anything
that Fran Drescher or Rosie Perez are in. What is really amazing about all
this is that it means that Vic is the least miscast of the bunch. We all
remember the husky voiced Susan from her turn as a drunken toad in I'll Cry Tomorrow. I'm not sure that her acting wasted and threatening to toss herself
out a window before heading off to AA to hook up with crippled up Eddie Albert
is really the resume you want in a Messalina. She didn't exactly look or sound
Roman, but she did have this really big white trash hair that was about thirty
years ahead of its time. I suppose that when you actually think about it, she
would be very appealing to a guy like Demetrius who looks like he probably grew
up in Flatbush or something. I can just see Messalina wearing one of those
skanky
satin jackets like the Fonz's girlfriend wore in Happy Days. I kept waiting
for her to drop her handkerchief to start the chariot race or for her chomp her
gum and whine about Demetrius going out with da boyz for anuddah
rumble.  Everyone's favorite character in this movie (well, aside from the robe - it's
kind of hard to be a real Christian and not pick the robe even though the
second best guy is so good) is Strabo, the tough, but lovable guy that runs the
gladiator school and played by Borgnine. It seems like just a year or so ago
that us moviegoers were watching him take a knife in the gut from Montgomery
Cliff in From Here To Eternity and it would only be another year after the release of Demetrius that he would win an Oscar for Marty where he basically played a Star Trek fan before there was such a thing as Star Trek. Of course that win was pretty much a gimme since he beat a bunch of no names
like Frank Sinatra, James Cagney, James Dean, and Spencer Tracy. Whatever
happened to those guys? Well, I'll bet they never married a gal named Tova!
Strabo is a very progressive character since he prances around in a leather
girdle most of the time while whipping sweaty hunks. I'm not going to lie to
you. About ten minutes into the movie when Demetrius punches out a Roman
soldier for trying to take Jesus' blankie and gets his hulking physique
sentenced to gladiator school, I was already screaming for scenes of guys in a
dirt covered arena throwing nets on each other, practicing with wooden swords,
and heaving the old medicine ball around. I was hoping that at the gladiator
school Demetrius would overcome his Christian wimpiness against killing and
violence that he exhibited (except against the entire Roman army whenever they
came to shakedown
his village for that infernal robe), make some friends, and encounter an evil
gladiator who was undefeated, but probably was without the honor a real
gladiator's gladiator would have. I was banking on a big showdown against this
bad guy and that Demetrius might have to avenge the friend he would surely make
or
at least kill a la Spartacus and his boyfriend. The movie kind of
gave us this masculine dynamic, but not as pronounced as I was hoping.
Demetrius does somehow end up befriending Blacula though which I thought was
probably a first for one of these all-male grapple academies.  Showing the good sense that all vastly inferior and tangentially related
sequels
do, this one begins by replaying a little bit of the last few minutes of The Robe. Look! There's Richard Burton and Jean Simmons! There's Demetrius! There's
Caligula! There's Susan Hayward! Nothing like editing some new footage
starring the B-listers you got to do this film into the old footage to give it
that false sense of continuity. Trust me, you don't need to try and disguise
the fact that this production is going to be second-rate. You pretty much gave
that away when you had a character who didn't have all that much of a role in
the first one get top billing in this one. Once we get Burton and Simmons put
to
rest again (is this Freddy and Jason?), we find out that Hayward is the slutty
wife of Claudius and that Caligula is still running around with his helium
voice demanding the robe. Romans are dispatched to find the robe and end up at
the town where Demetrius is enjoying his retirement from being Richard Burton's
second banana. He goes to protect the robe and ends up brawling with a Roman
after he puts his paws on Demetrius' girlfriend whom was probably named Lucia.
This is how Demetrius gets sentenced to gladiator school which appears to be a
little bit like boot camp, but with lots of sweaty guys in leather. This is
where we first see Demetrius' faith put to the test. There's this gladiator
bully who slaps him upside the head just to see if Christians really do turn
the other cheek. It turns out that they do, but unfortunately for the bully it
turns out that Blacula isn't Christian and doesn't mind helping out Demetrius
in
a pinch. Blacula and Demetrius get put together against one another in the
arena during the big game and they decide to try and have a fake match so that
neither one gets killed, but the crowd smells a rat and immediately starts a
"boring" chant and you can be sure that all the internet gladiator sites are
giving the match one star and comparing their workrate to Kevin Nash and
Triple H at a WWE house show in Beloit.  Due to circumstances I don't recall, (boring gladiator matches have a way of
causing me to get all forgetful) Demetrius and Blacula aren't killed, but live
to fight another day. I'm guessing it had something to do with Messalina's
interference on their behalf (or maybe some lion fights). The day before
another big match, as is the
tradition at most gladiator schools, a bunch of hookers are bussed in for the
warriors to practice their groping with and among those is Lucia who is being
snuck in so that she and Demetrius can have a little quality time together.
Messalina finds out and has Demetrius taken away and Lucia is left with the
other gladiators and the bully decides he is going to have his way with her.
Demetrius sees this and implores his God to help her and he does by apparently
killing her. That's right out of the old "to save the village we have to
destroy the village" playbook. As soon as this happens, Demetrius shows us
what he is made off by immediately renouncing his religion and demanding that
he be given a match with every guy in the school the next day. He ends up
killing pretty much everyone but Borgnine and Blacula and becomes a star. As a
fairly strong Christian (especially on Easter night when I was watching this) I
was outraged by his fair weather beliefs and basked in my superiority since I
wasn't experiencing tough times and was therefore pretty sure in my
convictions. Just to make sure that Demetrius has turned to the dark side, he
promptly moves in with Messalina and throws coins at her harem and is really
crabby when the Big Fisherman shows up to try and guilt him into going back to
church. The Big Fisherman is really Peter who sounds vaguely familiar from the
Bible, but I wasn't entirely sure who he was since I thought it was Noah that
got swallowed up by that whale. Messalina treats him to a drink by
throwing it on
him and then Demetrius tells him that he don't need no crappy god that's going
to kill his girlfriend. If I was the Big Fisherman (and I don't mind saying
that there's a few ladies who've called me that before) I would've said that
God don't need no sweaty, ungrateful gladiator, especially since he already had
Jean Simmons and Richard Burton, but beggars can't be choosers, right? As surprising as this will be to you, the movie then sends us off to find the
robe again. Demetrius gets the assignment and this is where he meets up with
Big Fisherman again and B.F. shows him that the robe is with Lucia. Lucia
isn't dead, but is just in a really deep sleep, but she is clutching the robe
and won't let go. After figuring out that he ain't going to get the robe from
her unless he pries it from her cold dead hands (or am I thinking about Moses
Heston here?), he gets his faith back! It's a miracle! Hallelujah! I believe
in you again now that it turns out you didn't kill my girlfriend! Ugh. A
final fight in the arena ensues somehow and Caligula gets killed thus putting
Claudius into power. The final scenes are even more laughable here than the
ones we saw at the end of The Robe. Claudius tells us that he was just pretending to be a cuckolded boob and
that he'll be a really tolerant emperor. Messalina promises that she'll be a
good wife to Claudius (yeah - now that he has a really sweet job). Demetrius
has his faith and woman back and Blacula is left holding the robe. Clearly, the
story is the loss and regaining of faith during trying circumstances, but it's
about as subtle as you would expect from a film that has the word "gladiators"
in the
title. Demetrius turns out to be a shallow dolt who buckles as soon as
something
bad happens in his life and only returns to his faith once he sees that
something bad really didn't happen. We should all be so lucky to have that
luxury. Shoot, this gomer even got to live the high life for awhile, killing
folks, eating well, and pumping Roman broads with really jacked up hair in
between. Even better than all of that is that Demetrius doesn't ever suffer
any real consequences for his renunciation of his god or from the life of
excess and sin that he engaged in while he was between religious beliefs.
Since this was the crux of the movie, the failure of this part of the story to
actually be believable is critical to the enjoyment of the film and not even
Borgnine or his leather lingerie could save things. It's predecessor suffered
from abrupt switches in faith and unbelievably broad antics from its
characters, but you had Richard Burton doing his dangedest to make it work.
Asking Victor Mature to do the same with even weaker material is something
even Job wouldn't be able to handle. This one did have better action than the
first one, but once we leave the gladiator school and chase after that robe
things begin to unravel. I don't think we had any more sequels after this one
which pretty much tells you that the robe was starting to look pretty frayed
and needed to be put back into mothballs for good.
Reviews © 2004
MonsterHunter
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