Impr. Maurice Paneels, Bruxelles. Window card for the 1944 re-release of DeMille’s 1932 epic of Christian martyrdom. Offset, impress by Maurice Paneels, Bruxelles. Belgian window card for the re-release of DeMille’s 1932 epic of Christian martyrdom. The poster features three of the film’s major players. Standing to the left is Claudette Colbert as the Empress Poppea. On the upper right, leering over the flames of Rome, is Charles Laughton as Nero. On the lower right is Fredric March as Roman prefect Marcus Superbus. Instead of lustily embracing the Christian girl Mercia (Elissa Landi) as in the original-release poster, we see him embracing the Empress (Colbert).
This change of the Roman embracing the Empress rather than the virginal Christian is reflective of the revisions to the film that had to be made in order to re-release it under the Hollywood Production Code. Pre-Code excesses like the lesbian seduction dance and some of the more horrifying deaths in the Coliseum had to be cut to get past the new censorship regime. The film is advertised as the Version Modermisée, the “Updated Version.” Also notable is the cross-shaped formation of Allied bombers flying in the upper-left corner, and the air raid spotlight acting as a diagonal divider. The updated version included a newly-filmed framing scene about an American bomber crew flying over a soon-to-be-liberated Rome, tying the repression of the Roman Empire to modern-day Fascism.
- Framed: 26 x 17.25 in
- Subject Matter: religious
- Created: 1944
- Collections: Biblical Movie Posters