'Demetrius' was 20th Century Fox's quickly made sequel to its introductory Cinemascope church picnic, "The Robe" a ponderous slog through ancient Rome, the Crucifixion and assorted martyring of the lead actors. Only one element of this film kept you from slipping into a coma......Jay Robinson's beyond crazy, take-no-prisoners performance as mad Emperor Caligula. Most actors quickly learn to dial down their technique for the camera.......not Robinson. Sneering, skulking, and shrieking, Robinson carried on like he was performing for the upper decks in Yankee Stadium.....while standing somewhere in the last rows of the parking lot.....
Jay didn't get a whole lot of screen time in "The Robe", but "Demetrius And The Gladiators" became a rip roarin' showcase for his Caligula and he eats the movie for breakfast. It's a Saturday morning cartoon show performance, but it energizes this movie and turns it into one hell of a pulpy good time.
Our hero, of course, is the prime side of beefcake Demetrius (Victor Mature), ex-slave, devout Christian and BFF to the Big Fisherman himself, Peter. (Michael Rennie, very uppercrust for a guy who fishes) They've been closely guarding Christ's robe, but Demetrius brawls with the Centurions and gets shipped off to Gladiator Camp run by the fight-well-or-die drill instructor. (Ernest Borgnine). Never a good career move......but things are lookin' up, cause Empress-in-training Messalina (Susan Hayward) wants Big D for a boytoy, generally ignoring her wussy hubby Claudius.(Barry Jones).
All of these folks,in the course of the film, are routinely browbeaten, insulted and threatened with execution by our favorite preening, toga'd psychotic Caligula. Halfway through the story, Caligula's convinced himself he's a god and wisely, nobody disagrees. Like Trump advisors, they say incredibly stupid patronizing things to save their own skins....
In the film's most riotous sequence, he finally gets his hands on that Robe and can't wait to give it a proper consumer field test. He races downstairs to what looks like his personal combination man-cave dungeon, stocked with only one prisoner. After he has the poor shlub put to the sword, he clutches Christ's robe and commands the skewered sucker to rise up from the dead. You can imagine his frustration as he howls louder than an infomercial customer whose set of ginsu knives won't cut properly.
Eventually Jay Robinson's glorious ranting pisses off his own guards....and,what can we say, he was fun while he lasted. But what a ride through his demented reign......including Victor Mature single handedly killing hordes of fellow gladiators and wrestling three tigers and the requisite pagan dancing girls, kickin' their legs up at Hayward's depraved Temple of Isis......
Ultimately, hunky Demetrius regains his lost faith and the Franz Waxman's choral music swells up to heavenly stereophonic heights. We say to hell with "Ben Hur", "King of Kings" and "The Greatest Story Ever Told"......give us crazy Jay, beefboy Vic, red hot Redhead Hayward and those dancing girls any day. Now that's an Easter movie we never fall asleep through. 4 reverent stars. (****)
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