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The Last Days of Pompeii

USA 1935
produced by
Merian C. Cooper for RKO
directed by Ernest B. Schoedsack
starring Preston Foster, Alan Hale, Basil Rathbone, John Wood, Louis Calhern, David Holt, Dorothy Wilson, Wyrley Birch, Gloria Shea, Frank Conroy, William V. Mong, Murray Kinnell, Henry Kolker, Edward Van Sloan, Zeffie Tilbury, John Davidson
story by James Ashmore Creelman, Melville Baker, screenplay by Ruth Rose

Last Days of Pompeii, Jesus Christ

review by
Mike Haberfelner

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Pompeii, a handful of decades after the birth of Christ: Marcus (Preston Foster) is a modest but happy blacksmith with the courage, talent and strength of a gladiator, but he prefers to care for his family. Then though his wife and child are run over by a chariot racing through the street, and lacking the money to pay the doctor to cure them, he sees them both die. He hardens and becomes a gladiator, fighting solely to make money and more money ... until he bumps into little Flavius (David Holt), a boy whose dad he has killed in the arena, and overcome by sympathy, he decides to take the boy in and raise him as his own. The responsibility of having to take care of the boy takes the edge out of his fight, and in a few months, he is an arena has-been.

Marcus becomes a horsedealer, but earns hardly enough for himself and his son - until he hears the prophecy of a clairvoyant to go to Judea to meet the greatest man on earth. Naturally, Marcus thinks the clairvoyant is talking about Pontius Pilate (Basil Rathbone), and once there he actually gets to speat to Pilate who makes him the leader of a raid of his fiercest rivals in the region - and Marcus succeeds, too, and the raid makes him a very rich man, but then Flavius falls ill, and it's only good luck that Jesus is actually around to heal him.

Marcus makes his farewell visit to Pontius Pilate right after he saw himself forced to condemn Jesus to death, which leaves him kind of a broken man, and later Marcus ditches the opportunity to help Jesus while he is carrying his cross to return to Pompeii with his wealth ...

Pompeii, 79 AD, approximately 15 years after Marcus's Judea adventure (which is of course historically entirely unaccurately, but that's how it is): Marcus is now one of the richest men of Pompeii and the head of the arena he has once fought in. He is presently collecting slaves to have them fight in the arena to please the new prefect (Louis Calhern), an unlikeable upstart, but slaves condemned to the arena escape their captors in alarming numbers.

Flavius meanwhile has grown into a young man (played by John Wood) who does everything in his power to help the escaped slaves and help them leave the Roman empire for good - whithout his father or anyone else knowing of course. He has only a fading memory of his encounter with Jesus, and his father insists that it must have been nothing but a dream - yet the boy still bases his idea of saving the slaves on Jesus's teachings. It's only when Pontius Pilate stops by for a friendly visit that he learns that there was actually such a man, the memory of whom still haunts Pilate.

Eventually though. Flavius' freed slaves are found in their cave they are hiding in, arrested and thrown into the arena, and Flavius with them. Upon realizing that, Marcus does everything in his power to save his son, who actually wants to die with the others rather than survive on his father's favours, but even though Marcus is the head of the arena, there is nothing he can do. When the slaughter begins though, Mount Vesuvius errupts burying the whole city. Marcus manages to save his son though and put him onto the last boat leaving Pompeii, then he helps others who are wounded and the like to make it out of the city, before defending the leaving ship against the prefect and his soldiers who want to confiscate the ship to save the city treasure. Marcus loses his own life doing so, but at least this last noble act has led him back onto the path of righteousness, and dying, he thinks he sees Jesus, who has come to take him with him.

 

Even disregarding the many historical inaccuracies of the film (e.g. there were some 4 decades between the death of Jesus and the outbreak of Mount Vesuvius), the film still isn't too great. Basically, it tries way too hard to make its point, to bring its message across, and by doing so lacks action during vast stretches of screentime. That the way the message is transported isn't exactly subtle or clichée-free doesn't help much either. It's only in the finale that the film actually kicks into gear, and the scenes of the destruction of Pompeii are pretty impressive - yet that's too little too late.

 

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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In times of uncertainty of a possible zombie outbreak, a woman has to decide between two men - only one of them's one of the undead.

 

There's No Such Thing as Zombies
starring
Luana Ribeira, Rudy Barrow and Rami Hilmi
special appearances by
Debra Lamb and Lynn Lowry

 

directed by
Eddie Bammeke

written by
Michael Haberfelner

produced by
Michael Haberfelner, Luana Ribeira and Eddie Bammeke

 

now streaming at

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Vimeo

 

 

 

Robots and rats,
demons and potholes,
cuddly toys and
shopping mall Santas,
love and death and everything in between,
Tales to Chill
Your Bones to

is all of that.

 

Tales to Chill
Your Bones to
-
a collection of short stories and mini-plays
ranging from the horrific to the darkly humourous,
from the post-apocalyptic
to the weirdly romantic,
tales that will give you a chill and maybe a chuckle, all thought up by
the twisted mind of
screenwriter and film reviewer
Michael Haberfelner.

 

Tales to Chill
Your Bones to

the new anthology by
Michael Haberfelner

 

Out now from
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