The Last Days of Pompeii

Plot

In the time of Jesus Christ, blacksmith Marcus is content with his life, beautiful wife Julia and six-month-old son Flavius. When Julia and their child are run down by a chariot in the streets of Pompeii, Marcus spends the little money he has to pay for a doctor and medicine. Needing more, in desperation, he becomes a gladiator. He wins his fight, but his wife and child still die. Blaming his poverty, he becomes an embittered professional gladiator and grows wealthier with each victory. Marcus adopts Flavius, a boy whose father Marcus killed in the arena. An injury ends Marcus' career as a gladiator and he takes a job working for Cleon, a slave trader.

Marcus raids an African village for slaves, where a father battles Marcus raiders until his young son's life is threatened and he is forced to surrender. Marcus identifies with the father's grief at being unable to protect his son. He stops slaving and turns to trading instead.

Marcus rescues a fortune teller, who foretells that Flavius will be saved by the greatest man in Judea. Marcus and Flavius travel to Jerusalem to see the man that Marcus thinks fits that description: Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor. At an inn along the way, a man tells him that the greatest man is staying in the stable, but Marcus does not believe him.

Pilate employs Marcus to lead a band of cutthroats to raid the chief of the Ammonites. Marcus comes away with many fine horses and much treasure, but finds that Flavius has been thrown from a horse and is near death. Marcus takes the boy to a noted healer and begs for his help. The healer is Jesus, who saves Flavius's life. When Marcus later reports back to Pilate with his share of the treasure, he finds Pilate has sentenced Christ to death.

As Marcus leaves the city, one of the apostles begs him to rescue Jesus, carrying his cross through the streets, but Marcus refuses. As Marcus and Flavius leave Jerusalem, they see three crosses on Calvary behind them.

Years pass. Marcus has grown wealthy as the head of the arena in Pompeii. One day, Marcus welcomes Pontius Pilate as a guest to his lavish home. When Flavius, now a young man, mentions his childhood memories of being healed by a man who preached love and compassion, Marcus assures him that there was no such person. The still-remorseful Pilate insists there was such a man, but he crucified him. The memory of the three crosses on the hill comes flooding back to Flavius.

Flavius is arrested and sentenced to die for secretly helping slaves escape from his father's arena. As he is herded into the arena to fight with the others, Mount Vesuvius erupts. As Marcus wanders stunned through the streets, he sees the jailer who refused to release Flavius trying to free his own son from the rubble. The dying man begs Marcus for mercy for his son. Marcus angrily refuses, but then remembers begging Jesus for mercy for Flavius and rescues the boy. Marcus sees his faithful servant Burbix leading a group of slaves carrying his treasure on litters. He orders them to use the litters to rescue the injured instead. As they get to a ship, Marcus sees that one of those saved is Flavius and offers a prayer of thanksgiving. The prefect and his men try to get through a gate to take the ship for themselves. Marcus holds the gate shut, giving the boat enough time to get away at the cost of his life. He has a vision of Christ reaching out to him just before he dies.

Cast

Preston Foster as Marcus

Alan Hale as Burbix

Basil Rathbone as Pontius Pilate

John Wood as adult Flavius

David Holt as young Flavius

Louis Calhern as Prefect (Allus Martius)

Dorothy Wilson as Clodia, a slave Flavius rescues and falls in love with

Frank Conroy as Gaius Tanno

William V. Mong as Cleon, The Slave Dealer

Murray Kinnell as Simon, The Judean Peasant

Henry Kolker as Warder

Edward Van Sloan as Calvus

Zeffie Tilbury as The Wise Woman

Ward Bond as Murmex of Carthage, the gladiator who defeats Marcus

Edwin Maxwell as The Augur

Jason Robards Sr. as The Tax Gatherer

Wyrley Birch as Leaster

Gloria Shea as Julia

Production

While honeymooning in Europe, Cooper visited Pompeii's ruins and felt inspired to produce a movie depicting the volcanic eruption that devastated the city. The Last Days of Pompeii, along with She, were part of a two-picture agreement with Cooper, with the initial agreement stating that each film would be made for $1 million each. However, in pre-production, RKO informed him of budget changes, stating that he would now have to shoot the two films for a combined $1 million rather than $1 million each. Cooper stated that he "cheated a lot" on She to direct more money into Pompeii. According to a blurb in the January 23, 1934, issue of The New York Times, the film was originally supposed to be filmed in color. It cost $818,000 to make.

Although inspired by the novel of the same name by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, the film has nothing to do with the book. The film's plot compresses the time between Christ's death and Vesuvius's eruption into 10–20 years. Ruth Rose wrote the screenplay, which drew elements from a story by James Creelman and Melville Baker. The story was meant to imitate DeMille's religious epics, like The Sign of the Cross in scope and grandiosity.

Willis O'Brien supervised the special effects for the climactic eruption scene. According to an article published in the Manila-based Tribune, large sets were constructed for the film, including a reproduction of the Temple of Jupiter with part of the Pompeiian forum, as well as the Pompeiian arena. The house of a wealthy Roman was reconstructed for the film. Many of these sets were destroyed on-camera as part of the final eruption scenes. For the destruction of the temple of Jupiter, four high speed cameras recorded twenty special effects technicians who destroyed the set using wires and rods.

Historical accuracy was not a priority for the production. The recently established film production code required that the inclusion of violence include moral messaging, which may explain the film's Christian message. Last Days includes a final repentance by Marcus that seems designed to align with a rule that wrongdoers in movies reform if they have a happy ending. One contemporary American review noticed a conspicuous lack of sexual material for a film set in a Roman vacation town. A direct mailing campaign promoting the film targeted clergymen and teachers.

Reception

The Last Days of Pompeii appeared to be a moderate box-office success upon its release in 1935, but RKO ultimately lost $237,000 after the film's first theatrical run. However, the picture finally made a profit for the studio following its 1949 re-release, when it shared a double bill with the re-release of another 1935 production, Cooper and Schoedsack's adventure fantasy film She. A book on representations of Pompeii in media speculated that Last Days was unsuccessful because of "its exaggerated exhibition of Christian morality and the completely implausible span of time covered in Judea." Writing in 2012, Richard B. Jewell remarked that the film probably failed because of the "relatively meager level of its spectacle", stating that O'Brien's special effects were not as impressive as usual.

Andre Sennwald reviewed the picture for The New York Times in October 1936, praising it as "an ably managed historical work" until the last part of the film "begins to bludgeon the moral". Sennwald described Rathbone's performance of Pilate as "a fascinating aristocrat, scornful in his hauteur and sly in his reasoning." Foster's performance as done "with thoroughness and skill." Writing at the Brooklyn Eagle, John Reddington compared the film to Cecil B. DeMille's religious epics and called Preston Foster's performance "virile". However, he concluded that "the ideology [...] is much too confused to merit consideration as a spiritual experience or a historical drama." Both Sennwald and Reddington noted that the temporal closeness of the destruction of Pompeii to Christ's crucifixion, as depicted in the film, was not historical.

Variety wrote that film's strengths lay in its technical achievements, despite "once or twice does a phony note intrude", and not in its historical accuracy. They noted that the film "omits even a small allusion to Pompeii's sex angle. This film has no romance ... A Roman story without a single orgy, without even a glimpse of the public baths or a hint that the town was devoted to amorous dalliance is in, itself something", but the omission allowed the story to focus on "Roman politics and commerce ... miserable poverty ... and barbaric games and sports."

In its December, 1935 edition, Modern Screen offered a different opinion with a four-star review that focussed on the technical achievements, while praising the "excellent cast of Preston Foster, Basil Rathbone, David Holt, Louis Calhern, John Wood and Dorothy Wilson." It concluded that the film’s strengths lay in its production values. "As out and out dramatic fare, it is still above the average, although we believe the photographers and the technical department are the real stars of the picture. Sets are gorgeous, and the scenes of the destruction of Pompeii are actually breath-taking in their seeming reality. For those scenes alone, the picture can be highly recommended."