Infamousta brilliant actors, brilliant editing

Usamah Harvey The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Billie Morin This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

Scarlet The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

golddigger-2 This movie was a fav of my mother's i have a copy on VHS I treasure originally the heroine was tied to the bulls horns not wanting to insure the star option was to tie her to a post Debra Karr is absolutely beautiful and Peter Ustinov is awesome as the flawed Nero

Kirpianuscus for the wise adaptation of a novel who remains an important declaration of faith. for the acting, who remains memorable for each of lead actors. for the credibility of a society who seems be not only realistic but not presented from a single angle. for the Rome and flames and for the courage to create little more than part of historical blockbusters of period. for the sensitivity of Deborah Kerr, for a Petronius who remains the best interpretation, for the love story who has more poetry than eroticism. and, sure , for Nero by Peter Ustinov. a film who impress and remains seductive after six and half decades. and that is its great virtue.

SnoopyStyle It's 30 years after the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Marcus Vinicius (Robert Taylor) commands the XIV Legion and returns to Rome after a successful 3 year campaign. His uncle Petronius is a close counsel to Emperor Nero (Peter Ustinov). He meets general Aulus Plautius' daughter Lygia (Deborah Kerr) who was the daughter of the king of Lygia taken hostage when she was a child and then adopted. The household is secretly Christian. Vinicius gets Nero to give Lygia as a hostage to him. Lygia slowly teaches the brute Vinicius about the peaceful Christian ways. Poppaea (Patricia Laffan) is the evil wife of the impetulant Nero.The scale is grand. Peter Ustinov is terrific as Nero. Otherwise, the other actors are pretty stiff. Quite frankly, Robert Taylor is too good at playing the dislikeable arrogant general. I don't care about him or even his transformation. It's hard to develop chemistry that way. Deborah Kerr is overacting a bit or maybe she's a little too old to act that way. This needs to have a better couple at the head. They don't work but the other parts work better. Ustinov is the true star in this although the bull wrestling is impressive too.

MissSimonetta The biblical epic was one of the most popular movie genres of the 1950s and early 1960s. Unfortunately, most of these films were expensive, Technicolor bores with stiff acting and cheap sensationalism. A few of these films were good/great (Ben-Hur (1959), Barabbas (1961)), some were kitschy fun (The Ten Commandments (1956)), and others were outright awful (The Silver Chalice (1954)). However, most of them were merely average to dull in quality, and that category is where Quo Vadis (1951) falls.The story takes place during Nero's reign and concerns his persecution of Christians after Rome is burned to the ground. The main plot concerns star cross'd lovers Marcus and Lygia, a macho Roman general and a gentle pagan princess-turned-Christian convert. The two encounter historical figures and events as they fall in love and come close to being martyred by the maniacal Nero and his equally vicious wife, Poppaea.The love story is handled poorly. Though Lygia later admits to Marcus that she knew he was the one for her at first sight, their first encounters involve him objectifying her, belittling her intelligence by saying she should not concern herself with philosophy, disgusting her with stories of battlefield gore, and to cap it all off, he forcibly takes her from her adopted family with the hope of legally owning her. Yet Lygia "knew she could come to love him"? She wants to be his wife even though he's shown her no respect? Some would say I'm being too "PC" and that Lygia is representative of 1st century women, but this film is not trying to show a realistic portrait of the 1st century. Many of the events in the film are not historically accurate as it is, so I doubt getting the mindset of 1st century women was on the mind of the screenwriter. It's bad writing, plain and simple.The acting is nothing to brag about (save for two special performances, but we'll get to them soon). Robert Taylor is his stilted, wooden self. Deborah Kerr is stuck in an uninteresting part that she struggles to breathe life into. Patricia Laffan is your standard pagan vamp, shooting bedroom eyes at Taylor while seductively posing on couches.The only two worthy performances come from Leo Glenn as Petronius and Peter Ustinov as Nero. Glenn's sarcastic, smart character is a thousand times more interesting than Taylor's cardboard soldier, and the love between him and his slave girl Eunice is more endearing than the one between Taylor and Kerr. Ustinov is just fantastic, whining and screaming and reciting bad poetry. He steals the show from everyone, making you wish this were a Nero biopic instead.Honestly, if you wanted to watch an old school biblical film concerning the love affair between a Roman soldier and a Christian woman, watch Cecil DeMille's Sign of the Cross (1932). Frederic March is a superior actor to Robert Taylor, and you can never go wrong with Charles Laughton and Claudette Colbert. No, it does not have the budget of this film, but it certainly sustains your interest a great deal more.