''The Last Roman'' () is a West German-Italian historical drama film starring

Laurence Harvey Laurence Harvey (born Zvi Mosheh Skikne; 1 October 192825 November 1973) was a Lithuanian-born British actor and film director. He was born to Lithuanian Jewish parents and emigrated to Union of South Africa, South Africa at an early age, before ...

Orson Welles George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985) was an American director, actor, writer, producer, and magician who is remembered for his innovative work in film, radio, and theatre. He is among the greatest and most influential film ...

Sylva Koscina Sylva Koscina (; born Silvija Košćina, ; 22 August 1933 – 26 December 1994) was a Yugoslav-born Italian actress, best known for her role as Iole, the bride of Hercules ( Steve Reeves) in ''Hercules'' (1958) and '' Hercules Unchained'' (196 ...

and

Honor Blackman Honor Blackman (22 August 1925 – 5 April 2020) was an English actress and singer, known for the roles of Cathy Gale in '' The Avengers''Aaker, Everett (2006). ''Encyclopedia of Early Television Crime Fighters''. McFarland & Company, Inc. . P. ...

. It was produced by

Artur Brauner Artur "Atze" Brauner (born Abraham Brauner; 1 August 1918 – 7 July 2019) was a German film producer and entrepreneur of Polish origin. He produced more than 300 films from 1946. Life and career He was born the oldest son of a Jewish family ...

and was the last film to be directed by

Robert Siodmak Robert Siodmak (; 8 August 1900 – 10 March 1973) was a German Jewish film director. His career spanned some 40 years, working extensively in the United States and France, as well as in his native country. Though he worked in many genres, he was ...

. It was originally released in two parts (''Kampf um Rom 1. Teil'' and ''Kampf um Rom 2. Teil: Der Verrat'') in 1968 and 1969 as a late installment of the

sword-and-sandal Sword-and-sandal, also known as peplum (: pepla), is a subgenre of largely Italy, Italian-made historical, mythological, or biblical epics mostly set in the Greco-Roman antiquity or the Middle Ages. These films attempted to emulate the big-budget ...

genre. ''The Last Roman'' shows the 6th-century power struggle between Byzantine emperor

Justinian Justinian I (, ; 48214 November 565), also known as Justinian the Great, was Roman emperor from 527 to 565. His reign was marked by the ambitious but only partly realized ''renovatio imperii'', or "restoration of the Empire". This ambition was ...

, the descendants of the

Western Roman Empire In modern historiography, the Western Roman Empire was the western provinces of the Roman Empire, collectively, during any period in which they were administered separately from the eastern provinces by a separate, independent imperial court. ...

and the

Ostrogoths The Ostrogoths () were a Roman-era Germanic peoples, Germanic people. In the 5th century, they followed the Visigoths in creating one of the two great Goths, Gothic kingdoms within the Western Roman Empire, drawing upon the large Gothic populatio ...

. The film is based on the novel '' A Struggle for Rome'' by Felix Dahn.

Plot

In the 6th century AD, the

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ruled the Mediterranean and much of Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. The Roman people, Romans conquered most of this during the Roman Republic, Republic, and it was ruled by emperors following Octavian's assumption of ...

has been shattered by Germanic invasions.

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

is ruled as an independent kingdom by the

, while the surviving, eastern remnant of Roman civilization is fast taking on a new identity as the

Byzantine Empire The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived History of the Roman Empire, the events that caused the ...

. The aristocracy of Rome, led by the crafty and arrogant Cethegus Caesarius, dream of overthrowing the Goths and reclaiming their city's ancestral glory. When the Ostrogothic king

Theodoric the Great Theodoric (or Theoderic) the Great (454 – 30 August 526), also called Theodoric the Amal, was king of the Ostrogoths (475–526), and ruler of the independent Ostrogothic Kingdom of Italy between 493 and 526, regent of the Visigoths (511–526 ...

dies, Cethegus takes advantage of the struggle for the succession that erupts between Amalaswintha and

Mataswintha Mataswintha, also spelled Matasuintha, Matasuentha, Mathesuentha, Matasvintha, or Matasuntha, () was a daughter of Eutharic and Amalasuintha. She was a sister of Athalaric, King of the Ostrogoths. Their maternal grandparents were Theodoric the Gr ...

, the king's daughters. Having played on Amalaswintha's paranoia to build his own power, Cethegus makes a secret pact with

Narses Narses (also spelled Nerses; ; ; ; c. 478–573) was a distinguished Byzantine general and statesman of Armenian heritage, renowned for his critical role in Emperor Justinian I’s military campaigns. Alongside the famed Belisarius, Narses was ...

, Byzantium's greatest general. The two will pool their armies to recapture Italy, meanwhile trying to undermine one another. Whoever emerges alive and victorious will claim both armies and power over a reconstituted Roman world. Meanwhile, Cethegus' hatred of the Ostrogoths is counterbalanced by his daughter Julia's romance with

Totila Totila, original name Baduila (died 1 July 552), was the penultimate King of the Ostrogoths, reigning from 541 to 552 AD. A skilled military and political leader, Totila reversed the tide of the Gothic War (535–554), Gothic War, recovering b ...

, a distinguished young Gothic warrior. The ensuing war causes upheavals in all three competing governments and ravages Italy itself. When the Ostrogothic state falls, Rome's hopes of reviving the past die with it.

Cast

as Cethegus *

as Theodora *

as Amalaswintha *

Robert Hoffmann Robert Hoffmann (30 August 1939 – 4 July 2022) was an Austrian actor, best known to British audiences for his title role performance in '' The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe'' (1964). Hoffmann was born in Salzburg. ''Crusoe'' was his screen d ...

* Lang Jeffries as

Belisarius BelisariusSometimes called Flavia gens#Later use, Flavius Belisarius. The name became a courtesy title by the late 4th century, see (; ; The exact date of his birth is unknown. March 565) was a military commander of the Byzantine Empire under ...

* Michael Dunn as

* Florin Piersic as Witiches * as Teja *

Harriet Andersson Harriet Andersson (born 14 February 1932) is a Swedish actress, best known outside Sweden for being part of director Ingmar Bergman's stock company. She often plays impulsive, working class characters. Film actress Harriet Andersson began her ...

as Mathaswintha * Ewa Strömberg as Rauthgundis *

Ingrid Boulting Ingrid Boulting (born in Transvaal, Union of South Africa in 1947) is an actress and model, daughter of actress turned fashion model Enid Munnik (later Enid Boulting from her 2nd marriage in 1951) step-daughter of English film-maker Roy Boultin ...

as Julia * Friedrich von Ledebur as

Hildebrand Hildebrand is a character from Germanic heroic legend. ''Hildebrand'' is the modern German form of the name: in Old High German it is ''Hiltibrant'' and in Old Norse ''Hildibrandr''. The word ''hild'' means "battle" and ''brand'' means "sword" ...

* Dieter Eppler as Thorismund

Production

After his domestic market success with ''

Die Nibelungen ''Die Nibelungen'' ("The Nibelungs") is a two-part German series of Silent film, silent fantasy films created by Austrian director Fritz Lang in 1924, consisting of ''Die Nibelungen: Siegfried'' and ''Die Nibelungen: Kriemhild's Revenge''. Th ...

'', German producer Artur Brauner planned to make another two-part movie, but one that would measure up to international standards and open up new markets in the US. Notwithstanding warnings that the public's interest in epic movies had already peaked, Brauner went ahead with his project to adapt the German historical novel '' A Struggle for Rome'' (original German title: ''Ein Kampf um Rom'') written by Felix Dahn, which had been quite popular since it was first published in 1876. With an eye on the US market, Brauner hired director Robert Siodmak and actors Orson Welles, Laurence Harvey and Honor Blackman. For German audiences, the cast included Robert Hoffmann, Friedrich von Ledebur and Dieter Eppler. The novel was adapted for the screen by

David Ambrose David Edwin Ambrose (born 21 February 1943) is a British novelist, playwright and screenwriter. His credits include at least twenty films, four stage plays, and many hours of television, including the controversial mockumentary '' Alternative 3' ...

, but the screenplay was written by Ladislas Fodor. Director Robert Siodmak was not comfortable with the project. In late 1967, he wrote a letter to Brauner in which he noted that after having read all the scripts he felt that the dialogue was "too simple (to put it mildly) almost throughout and barely up to the standard of ten-year-old children. The characters are not consistent, they have numerous breaks and even the heroes are becoming uninteresting and unlikeable towards the end of the movie. ..At the end of part 2 the historical facts have been changed so violently that we have to voice serious concerns. The doom of the Ostrogoths is not just a great drama of world literature but also a huge historical drama. ..Treason and exposure, guilt and atonement are constructed so primitively that they cause deadly boredom .. Filming took place between 6 May 1968 and September 1968 in

Romania Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southeast Europe. It borders Ukraine to the north and east, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Bulgaria to the south, Moldova to ...

and the

Spandau Studios The Spandau Studios or CCC Studios were film and television studios located in Spandau, a suburb of Berlin. They were established in 1949 following the Second World War by the producer Artur Brauner controller of CCC Films, on the site of a forme ...

in Berlin. Brauner chose Romania as a low cost location — the Romanian army supplied several thousand extras for the film. According to one source, the production was at the time the most expensive German film after World War II, at 15 million

Deutsche Mark The Deutsche Mark (; "German mark (currency), mark"), abbreviated "DM" or "D-Mark" (), was the official currency of West Germany from 1948 until 1990 and later of unified Germany from 1990 until the adoption of the euro in 2002. In English, it ...

. However, Brauner himself put the production costs at 8 million DM. Due to a string of problems ( budget overruns, withdrawn guarantees, cancelled powers of attorney) he said he lost 4 million DM on the project. Robert Siodmak received billing as director in the credits, his collaborators

Sergiu Nicolaescu Sergiu Florin Nicolaescu (; 13 April 1930 – 3 January 2013) was a Romanian people, Romanian film director, actor and politician. He was best known for his historical films, such as ''Michael the Brave (film), Mihai Viteazul'' (1970, released in ...

and

Andrew Marton Andrew Marton (born Endre Marton; 26 January 1904 – 7 January 1992) was a Hungarian-American film director. In his career, he directed 39 films and television programs, and worked on 16 as a second unit director, including the chariot race in ...

were only mentioned as directors of the 2nd unit.

Release

Part 1 premiered on 17 December 1968 at the Zoo-Palast in Berlin. Part 2 went on mass release in West Germany on 21 February 1969. In Italy the two parts were initially called ''La guerra per Roma — prima parte'' and ''La guerra per Roma — seconda parte''. They were later edited into one movie entitled ''La calata dei barbari''. The one-part version was released in the United States in 1973 as ''The Last Roman'' and to German movie theatres in 1976.

Reception

The film was not well received by the critics. 'Evangelischer Filmbeobachter' gave the film credit for "much love, splendour and pathos" but criticised it for not even attempting to put it on a "historic foundation". 'Lexikon des internationalen Films' described it as "a spectacle of power struggles, intrigues and battles in an outdated historical and scenographical style" that "rigorously excluded the ideological element of Felix Dahn's novel". It also called the film "naive-entertaining", but "psychologically crude" and "too superficial". The Filmbewertungsstelle Wiesbaden, which handed out the ratings of "Wertvoll" and "Besonders wertvoll" to films, refused to give the film one of these ratings. It argued that "The colour cinematography ..is just as boring in its conventionality as the editing. Décor and costumes are obtrusively theatrical and do not make the viewer forget for one second that they are scenery and drapery. The actors are very much in line with this. Instead of dialogues they are reciting wooden texts."

References

External links

* *
Artur-Brauner-Archive at the Deutsches Filmmuseum in Frankfurt (German), containing the production files for this movie
{{DEFAULTSORT:Last Roman 1968 films 1969 films 1960s historical films German historical films Italian historical films Romanian historical films German epic films West German films Films set in ancient Rome Films set in the 6th century Films set in the Byzantine Empire Films directed by Robert Siodmak Films directed by Sergiu Nicolaescu Films directed by Andrew Marton Films scored by Riz Ortolani 1960s German-language films English-language German films Films based on German novels Films based on historical novels Films released in separate parts Cultural depictions of Justinian I Cultural depictions of Theodora I Sword-and-sandal films Films shot at Spandau Studios 1960s Italian films 1960s German films Adaptations of works by Felix Dahn