Fall of Rome — and movie epics

by Bruce Dancis

McClatchy Newspapers (MCT)

6 May 2008

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Bill Bronston just missed witnessing “The Fall of the Roman Empire,” but he did get to spend some time in the Forum of Rome.

“When we walked into the middle of this thing, I was just thunderstruck,” Bronston, a Carmichael, Calif., physician, says in an interview. “We were in miniature. It was immense - a third to a half-mile long. Hundreds of marble statues. My heels were clicking on the stone as we walked, and echoing. It was stunning.”

Of course, Bronston, 69, was not around to observe the demise of the Roman Empire, which took centuries. But he did arrive in Spain in 1963 just after filming had wrapped on “The Fall of the Roman Empire,” the 188-minute epic produced by his father, Samuel Bronston, the independent producer who had earlier made the large-scale “King of Kings” and “El Cid.”

Released last week on DVD, “The Fall of the Roman Empire” (two or three discs, Genius Products/The Weinstein Co., $24.95/$39.92, not rated) comes with an audio commentary by Bill Bronston and Mel Martin (author of “The Magnificent Showman: The Epic Films of Samuel Bronston"), several documentaries on the making of the movie and the true history of the Roman Empire, and - in the three-disc Limited Collector’s Edition - a reproduction of the original 1964 souvenir program, six color production stills and more.

The Roman Forum that Bill Bronston saw and walked upon 45 years ago was the largest outdoor movie set ever built. The reconstructed Forum was 1,312 feet by 754 feet, its 27 buildings covering more than 55 acres on the plains north of Madrid, Spain.

“The Fall of the Roman Empire” used much the same crew Samuel Bronston employed for the very successful “El Cid” (1961), including director Anthony Mann.

But while “El Cid” was a great critical and financial success - costing, according to Martin, $6.25 million to make and taking in $26.5 million in the United States alone - “The Fall of the Roman Empire” hemorrhaged money. It incurred production costs of $26 million to $28 million, or $180 million to $195 million in today’s dollars.

“My dad had a mantra,” explains Bill Bronston, “`Money is no object.’ All his life, he overspent.”

The huge set in “The Fall of the Roman Empire,” released in 1964, served the elder Bronston’s tale of Marcus Aurelius, known as the last good emperor of Rome (played by Alec Guinness), and his decision to name his trusted general Livius (Stephen Boyd) as his successor over his own son, Commodus (Christopher Plummer), much to the delight of his daughter, Lucilla (Sophia Loren).

But before Marcus Aurelius can reveal his choice, he is murdered by Commodus’ henchmen, and Commodus becomes the new emperor. Vain, irresponsible and somewhat mad, Commodus begins to undo all the good his father had accomplished in developing a Pax Romana, in which all of Rome’s subjects were to live in peace and harmony. It is through Commodus’ corrupt rule that the Roman Empire begins to crumble.

(If that plot summary reminds readers of Ridley Scott’s “Gladiator,” that’s because the 2000 film starring Russell Crowe goes over the same loose historical ground.)

The Forum wasn’t the only epic set constructed for “The Fall of the Roman Empire,” which takes place roughly around A.D. 180. The first 75 minutes of the movie were shot in and around Marcus Aurelius’ mountain fortress - built in Spain’s Sierra Guadarrama, standing in for what is now Austria - as his Roman army confronts Germanic tribes, aka “barbarians.”

In part, as they say in the movie business, we can see that money on the screen. In addition to the spectacular sets, Bill Bronston says in his DVD commentary, “Every costume is real, every piece of leather, every piece of metal ... all done by Spanish craftsmen.”

As for the cast, estimated at between 16,000 and 20,000 people, Bronston says, “I can’t even fathom an operation of that size. There’s an entire army in the field who have to be armed, have to be fed, have to have medical care, have to have bathrooms, have to have transportation.

“The whole Spanish (army) cavalry was there,” Bronston continues. “My dad had 1,500 horses in his stable, but there were that many more that came from the army and the mounted police.”

Samuel Bronston’s close relationship with the Spanish government raises some difficult questions, particularly since Spain was ruled by fascist dictator Francisco Franco from 1939 until his death in 1975.

Despite its political leanings, Spain remained officially neutral during World War II and became friendlier with the United States as the Cold War heated up. The Pact of Madrid in 1953 enabled the United States to set up air and naval bases in Spain in exchange for financial aid. Yet Spain lagged behind the rest of Western Europe in the 1950s and `60s in terms of economic development.

According to Bill Bronston, in the late 1950s, retired U.S. Adm. Chester Nimitz, a hero of World War II, invited his father “to come to Spain to consider making the movie `John Paul Jones,’” a film that would be produced with the extensive backing of the U.S. Navy.

“Nimitz wanted to introduce my dad to the (Franco) regime and to facilitate a relationship there,” Bronston says. “My dad cut a deal with the Franco leadership, specifically with the tourism minister and the entertainment industry liaison for Spain.”

In addition to providing help such as the use of the Spanish army in “El Cid” and the cavalry in “The Fall of the Roman Empire,” and recruiting both Spaniards and tourists to work as extras, the Spanish government gave Samuel Bronston a percentage of oil importation rights for the country.

With production costs in Spain a fraction of what they would have been in the United States, and with the full cooperation of the Spanish government, the elder Bronston set up a film studio in Madrid. There he made “John Paul Jones” (1959), “King of Kings” (1961), “El Cid” (1961) and “55 Days in Peking” (1963) before embarking upon “The Fall of the Roman Empire.”

“My dad was a dyed-in-the-wool opportunist,” Bill Bronston says. “He would make an alignment with whomever he had to in order to accomplish his projects. But he wasn’t gonna kill and he wasn’t gonna engage in oppression. He paid more than top wages, and tripled and quadrupled the wage scale with everybody he was dealing with.”

Politics aside, “The Fall of the Roman Empire” might be looked upon differently had it not failed so miserably at the box office, taking in only an estimated $4.75 million in the United States and getting massacred by the critics. Samuel Bronston actually ran out of money during the filming of the movie, and Paramount Pictures took over the film.

Bill Bronston faults Paramount for “sensationalizing” the film in its marketing, arguing that it should have been treated more as a serious movie and work of art. He also says 40 minutes of the film he saw at an initial screening were cut by Paramount before the movie was released, harming its continuity and character development.

“When I saw it at the premiere,” Bronston says, “I was heartbroken. It was butchered.” Nonetheless, he says, “the fact that it holds up butchered only attests to its internal strength.”

He recognizes that by 1964, when “The Fall of the Roman Empire” was released - only months after the debacle known as “Cleopatra” came out - “people were jaded” and tired of epics.

Still, the loyal son of Samuel Bronston defends the craft of the film, its vision of a peaceful world and a historical “prescience that makes the movie a hundred times more relevant today than it was when it was made.

“I do believe it is as good as a movie gets, short of being a perfect story.”