However, neither of these versions do any justice to the intended shooting script, which was the heavily-tampered Gore Vidal version. In 1999 the original uncut 156-minute version was released on DVD. The most commonly seen version was the R-rated theatrical cut which had all the graphic sexuality removed and was also the version released domestically on VHS. I remember seeing full-page ads in my father’s secret stash of Penthouse magazines for several years before Caligula was finally released. But I champion this movie warts, deformities, excesses, and extremities, in all its muddled, self-indulgent, hardcore wonder! Vivat Caligula! Throughout Caligula’s checkered history – and, it is oh, so checkered – the movie has been continually, and unjustly, banished from serious appraisal. “What shall it profit a man if he should gain the whole world and lose his own soul.” - Mark 8:36īehold, the glorious disaster that is I, Caligula! Not so much an unmitigated catastrophe, but the beautiful ruins of a once proud beast, the most expensive hardcore movie of all-time, Bob Guccione and Tinto Brass’s Caligula took four years to make, enjoyed a briefly successful theatrical run in a handful of theatres before becoming the white elephant in the offices of Penthouse magazine, the bane of screenwriter Gore Vidal’s career, the thorn in Tinto Brass’s side, and the embarrassment of core cast members, not to mention, the ridicule of most critics. Logline: The sudden rise and spectacular fall of Rome’s most notorious emperor. Italy/US | 1979 | Directed by Tinto Brass, Bob Guiccione, Giancarlo Lui
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