DVD Helen of Troy
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Review(s): DVD Helen of Troy | |
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Shakespeare has a defeated Richard the Third declare he would give his kingdom for a horse. Here is the story of how the Greeks gave a horse, albeit a wooden one, and conquered a kingdom. "Helen of Troy" was made by Warner Bros. in the 1950s heyday of the screen epic movie,and it shows in the production values. The story tells of how Prince Paris of Troy undertakes a peace mission to warlike Sparta whose King Menelaus, husband to Helen, whilst feigning friendship is actually plotting, with his Greek allies, an attack on prosperous Troy. Paris is forced to flee for his life by the duplicitous King. His escape is aided by Helen, the two having experienced instant mutual attraction on first meeting (Paris being unware of who she really is). As Paris is bidding a cliff-top farewell to Helen they are discovered by Spartan soldiers hunting him. Helen is clearly implicated so Paris leaps to freedom with her in his arms. They flee to Troy on a friendly vessel waiting off the shore of Sparta. This triggers the Trojan War as Menelaus now has the perfect excuse.
Jacques Sernas plays Paris and the, then, little known Rossana Podesta plays Helen and both are physically fine in their roles. Although not native speakers both spoke their parts in English. Sernas did speak English but Rosssana Podesta did not and learned her lines by rote. However, it was decided to dub the voice of Jacques Sernas. His accented English did not fit well with the strong classical voices of the British supporting players. This has the effect of making him sound rather wooden and unemotional, but does not detract from the overall enjoyment of the movie. Like all movies of this type it loses something when seen away from the large screen but, for all that, it is an exciting story well told and visually impressive, especially the battle scenes.
Classical Greek scholars will notice the liberties that Hollywood took with the original tale by the blind Greek poet Homer. In this version Paris is portrayed as a strong, resolute and heroic figure and Helen as the unfortunate, unhappy, wife of the brutish King Menelaus. The movie commences with the original musical overture and the soundtrack has been remastered in Dolby Digital 5.1. The bonus material consists of three interesting "the making of" documentaries shown by Warner Bros. on the TV show they had at the time. In addition there is the original theatrical trailer. I first saw this movie in 1956 and liked it then and I still like it now. I have adjusted my star rating of this movie to reflect this.
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| 50's style splashy, superficial treatment of the Iliad |
Having seen Troy, the blockbuster from the Hollywood "Pitt of horror," I also aver that other efforts to tell the story of the Iliad have met with limited success. Take the case of Helen Of Troy, the 1955 movie with Rossana Podesta and an all-star British cast. Despite its near two-hour length, it's all splashy pageantry with no substance, with all sorts of liberties taken with Homer's tale.In this version, Paris, en route to Sparta on a peace mission with his cousin Aeneas, is swept overboard, and rescued from Menelaus's soldiers by Helen. Menelaus is portrayed as a portly bearded unloving tyrant, similar in Troy, but he nevertheless rallies Agamemnon, Nestor, Diomedes, Achilles, and Ulysses (he's not called Odysseus here) when Paris and Helen flee and sets sail for Troy. Naturally, Paris is condemned by nearly every Trojan for bringing the Greeks to their doorstep. Helen of course still cherishes him, as does his brother Polydorus, someone all too eager to spill some Spartan blood. Priam's wife Hecuba is the only other one to show sympathy for Helen. Another contrast between this and Troy is that the latter spends too much time on certain aspects, whereas Helen Of Troy only brushes the surface. The conflict between Agamemnon and Achilles over Briseis played a huge part in Troy. Here, Briseis is not even mentioned by name, but Achilles refuses to fight per the Iliad. So what does work? The costumes on both sides, the actual ships with oars and the sight of marching Greek phalanxes, and the city of Troy itself is of good 50's quality. And the grief on Andromache's face is visible on her face, as she realizes that Hector is about to be killed--pretty good for the 50's. However, anachronistic errors include the medieval wooden towers the Greeks use to scale the walls of Troy and the battering ram. The funniest are the leopard or jaguar skins worn by Achilles and at one point Hector. Achilles, king of the jungle... yeah right! And the statue of Athena is so grotesque that I wondered if I was looking at Medusa, or worse yet, Kali. As for the performers, Harry Andrews was an interesting choice as Hector. Ronald Lewis shines as Aeneas, as does as Nora Swinburne as Hecuba and Robert Brown as Polydorus. But Janette Scott as Cassandra is my favourite, a slip of a girl maddened by the gift of foresight, yet doomed not to be believed. And Jacques Sernas's wooden blonde, blue-eyed Paris was clearly meant for the women at the time. He does bring shame to Troy, but he's more of a fighter here than Orlando Bloom's version, as he bests Ajax in Sparta. However, Stanley Baker's Achilles leaves much to be desired. Brigitte Bardot has a small part as Andraste, Helen's cute personal slave, before she became a blonde temptress in the 60's and much worse later. Movies in the 1950's only took a superficial cliched approach to novels or classics, with a sheer disregard for accuracy (Paris kills Patroculus here, not Hector), and that is Helen Of Troy's Achilles heel. At the sight of the Greek ships massing along the Aegean, Priam says the phrase of "the face that launched a thousand ships." I'd probably launch a few row boats after this Helen, but not a thousand ships. Later, it is Helen who seeing the wooden horse wheeled in, steals Laocoon's line: "Timeo danaos et dona ferente." Or in English per the movie, "Beware of Greeks bearing gifts." A not bad, though dated effort, especially for those used to hoards of digital armies and gory violence.
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First of all, anyone who depends upon films to understand history (especially ancient history) is on a fool's errand. Moreover, both of Homer's epic poems possess a scope and depth which simply cannot be accommodated within a film with a running time of less than 15-20 hours. That said, this is a generally entertaining presentation of the basic plot: Prince Paris of Troy (Jacques Sernas) visits Sparta, falls in love with Queen Helen (Rosanna Podesta) and she with him, they return together to Troy, her outraged husband Menelaus (Nial MacGinnis) organizes an army and follows them, lays siege to the city, and eventually Troy is occupied and then obliterated. Most of the film's tension (such as it is) involves Achilles (Stanley Baker) and his adversarial relationships with Menelaus and Agamemnon (Robert Douglas) and then with Prince Hector (Harry Andrews) whom he slays in hand-to-hand combat. This is an above average spectacle, comparable with predecessors Samson and Delilah (1949) and Demetrius and the Gladiators (1954). By no means a great film, nonetheless Helen of Troy (as directed by Robert Wise) offers generally solid acting throughout its cast and several memorable battle scenes without benefit of digital technologies when filmed in 1955. Yes, that's Brigitte Bardot as Andraste and Eduardo Ciannelli as Andros. And yes, I enjoyed seeing this film again, motivated to do so after seeing Wolfgang Petersen's Troy. The inclusion of various gods and goddesses in the earlier film now seems silly but the absence of a "superstar" such as Brad Pitt in one of its lead roles is (at least for me) refreshing.
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