Blu-Ray Review: ‘Quo Vadis’ is a Classic Made For the Era of HD

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HollywoodChicago.com Blu-Ray Rating: 4.0/5.0
Blu-Ray Rating: 4.0/5.0

CHICAGO – It might be a generational thing, but I’ll never understand why people watch movies on smaller and smaller screens like their laptop, cell phone, or iPod. Maybe it’s because I grew up thinking of classic movies as epic adventures that should be larger than life. Movies were arguably never “bigger” than they were in the era of “Quo Vadis,” now available on Blu-Ray.

Based on the novel by Henryk Sienkiwicz, “Quo Vadis” has already been made three times before as a silent film (and would be made two times after as a mini-series), but the massive MGM version from 1951 is the classic take on the legendary story of Nero and Rome.

Quo Vadis was released on Blu-Ray on March 17th, 2009.
Quo Vadis was released on Blu-Ray on March 17th, 2009.
Photo credit: Warner Brothers

The film was nominated for eight Oscars, including Best Picture, two for Best Actor in a Supporting Role, and Best Cinematography. (It won none, losing to “An American in Paris”.)

How epic is “Quo Vadis”? It took 30,000 people to make the film with 110 speaking parts and an amazing on-location shoot for this nearly-three-hour film. As the back of the Blu-Ray says, “Before 300…Before Gladiator…Before Ben Hur…There Was Quo Vadis.”

The great Robert Taylor plays the Legion commander whose love for a Christian slave girl (Deborah Kerr) corsses the divide between Empire and a sect with a higher loyalty. Presiding over it all is Nero (Peter Ustinov). He is Caesar, madman, murdderer - an imperial ruler of the spectacular, and spectacularly doomed glory that was Rome.

“Quo Vadis” was meant to be seen in Blu-Ray. It’s a massive film that is truly enhanced by the HD experience in its original 1.33:1 aspect ratio that has been remastered from restored picture elements. Luckily, the transfer for “Quo Vadis” is not too overdone. Sometimes HD video transfers of classic films can end up looking a bit too plastic, but “Quo Vadis” looks amazing.

The film is also wisely presented with just a mono track (also available in French, Spanish, German, and Italian). Too often studios take mono tracks and try and turn them into surround tracks and the result almost never sounds right. With a full-frame, mono transfer, “Quo Vadis” looks exactly the way it should. There’s no better studio for classic Blu-Ray than Warner Brothers.

The film is presented with a commentary by critic/film historian F.X. Feeney, the original roadshow overture and exit music rejoined to the film for the first time 56 years, the theatrical trailers, and a new featurette called “In the Beginning: Quo Vadis and the Genesis of the Biblical Epic”.

‘Quo Vadis’ is released by Warner Brothers Home Video and stars Robert Taylor, Deborah Kerr, Leo Genn, and Peter Ustinov. It was written by John Lee Mahin and S.N. Behrman & Sonya Levin based on the novel by Henryk Sienkiwicz and directed by Mervyn LeRoy. It was released on March 17th, 2009. It is not rated.

HollywoodChicago.com content director Brian Tallerico

By BRIAN TALLERICO
Content Director
HollywoodChicago.com
brian@hollywoodchicago.com

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