''Sheba and the Gladiator'' or ''Sign of the Gladiator'' () is a 1959

historical drama film A historical drama (also period drama, period piece or just period) is a dramatic work set in the past, usually used in the context of film and television, which presents historical events and characters with varying degrees of fiction such as c ...

loosely pertaining to the

Palmyrene Empire The Palmyrene Empire was a short-lived breakaway state from the Roman Empire resulting from the Crisis of the Third Century. Named after its capital city, Palmyra, it encompassed the Roman provinces of Syria Palaestina, Arabia Petraea, and Egypt ...

and its re-annexation back into 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 ...

Cast

Anita Ekberg Kerstin Anita Marianne Ekberg (29 September 193111 January 2015) was a Swedish actress active in American and European films, known for her beauty and curvaceous figure. She became prominent in her iconic role as Sylvia in the Federico Fellini f ...

Zenobia Septimia Zenobia (Greek: Ζηνοβία, Palmyrene Aramaic: , ; 240 – c. 274) was a third-century queen of the Palmyrene Empire in Syria. Many legends surround her ancestry; she was probably not a commoner, and she married the ruler of the ...

Georges Marchal Georges Marchal (10 January 1920 – 28 November 1997) was a French actor. Born Georges Louis Lucot in Nancy, Meurthe-et-Moselle, France, the strikingly handsome Marchal was discovered in the early-1940s by director Jean Grémillon. By the ear ...

as Consul Marcus Valerius *

Folco Lulli Folco Lulli (3 July 1912 – 23 May 1970) was an Italian partisan and film actor. He appeared in more than 100 films between 1946 and 1970. Life and career Born in Florence, the son of the baritone Gino Lulli and the elder brother of actor ...

as Zemanzius *

Chelo Alonso Chelo Alonso (born Isabel Apolonia García Hernández, 10 April 1933 – 20 February 2019) was a Cuban actress who became a star in Italian cinema, and ultimately a 1960s cult film heroine and sex symbol in the U.S. She was well known for playi ...

as Erica *

Gino Cervi Luigi Cervi (3 May 1901 – 3 January 1974), better known as Gino Cervi (), was an Italian actor. He was best known for portraying Peppone in a series of comedies based on the character ''Don Camillo'' (1952–1965), and police detective Jul ...

Aurelian Aurelian (; ; 9 September ) was a Roman emperor who reigned from 270 to 275 AD during the Crisis of the Third Century. As emperor, he won an unprecedented series of military victories which reunited the Roman Empire after it had nearly disinte ...

Jacques Sernas Jokūbas Bernardas Šernas (30 July 1925 – 3 July 2015), commonly known as Jacques Sernas and sometimes credited as Jack Sernas, was a Lithuanian-born French actor with an international film career. Biography He was born in Kaunas, Lithuania, ...

as Julianus *

Lorella De Luca Lorella De Luca (17 September 1940 – 9 January 2014) was an Italian film, television, and voice actress. One of the most recognized '' ingénues'' of Italian cinema during the mid-to-late 1950s, she is best known for having played naive young ...

as Batsheba *

Alberto Farnese Alberto Farnese (3 June 1926 – 2 June 1996) was an Italian actor. He appeared in more than 80 films and television shows from 1951 to 1989. He starred in the film '' Whom God Forgives'', which won the Silver Bear Extraordinary Prize of the ...

as Marcello *

Mimmo Palmara Domenico "Mimmo" Palmara (25 July 1928 – 10 June 2016) was an Italian actor. Biography Born in Cagliari, Palmara made his film debut in 1952 as a character actor in drama films by eminent directors such as Luchino Visconti, Mario Monicelli an ...

as Lator

Production

''Sheba the Gladiator'' was shot in 1958. Director

Guido Brignone Guido Brignone (6 December 1886 – 6 March 1959) was an Italian film director and actor. He was the father of actress Lilla Brignone and younger brother of actress Mercedes Brignone. Brignone was born in Milan, Italy. He was the first Italian ...

fell ill during the production on the film leading to two other directors to enter the production to help complete it:

Michelangelo Antonioni Michelangelo Antonioni ( ; ; 29 September 1912 – 30 July 2007) was an Italian film director, screenwriter, and editor. He is best known for his "trilogy on modernity and its discontents", ''L'Avventura'' (1960), ''La Notte'' (1961), and '' ...

and

Riccardo Freda Riccardo Freda (24 February 1909 – 20 December 1999) was an Italian film director. He worked in a variety of genres, including sword-and-sandal, horror film, horror, ''giallo'' and spy films. Freda began directing ''I Vampiri'' in 1956. The f ...

. For Antonioni, he visited Brignone in the hospital and reported on what he filmed and received instructions for the next day. Freda was in charge shooting the battle scenes which he did with cinematographer

Mario Bava Mario Bava (; 31 July 1914 – 27 April 1980) was an Italian filmmaker who worked variously as a director, cinematographer, special effects artist and screenwriter. His low-budget genre films, known for their distinctive visual flair and stylish ...

and Antonioni working with cinematographer Luciano Trasatti shooting the indoor scenes. Other people credited to the film included

Sergio Leone Sergio Leone ( ; ; 3 January 1929 – 30 April 1989) was an Italian filmmaker, credited as the pioneer of the spaghetti Western genre. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest directors in the history of cinema. Leone's film-making style ...

as a screenwriter.

commented that Antonioni "couldn't care less" about the film and "didn't direct the actors." Freda had an argument with Palmara and unsuccessfully tried to court

on set.

Release

''Sheba and the Gladiator'' was distributed in Italy on March 5, 1959. It was released in West Germany as ''Im Zeichen Roms'' on 2 October 1959.

American International Pictures American International Pictures, LLC (AIP or American International Productions) is an American film production company owned by Amazon MGM Studios. In its original operating period, AIP was an independent film production and distribution c ...

acquired the American rights to the film and re-titled it ''Sign of the Gladiator'' (''Sign of Rome'' "was a pretty dismal title" according to Samuel Z. Arkoff) and cut 18 minutes from the original running time. There was no gladiator in the film so they redubbed it to change the general played by Jacques Sernas into a gladiator. It was released in September 1959 in the United States. American International Pictures added an end title song called "Xenobia" sung by Bill Lee which was released on AIP Records. The film grossed a total of $1.25 million in rentals. "We did quite well with the picture" said

Samuel Z Arkoff Samuel Zachary Arkoff (June 12, 1918 – September 16, 2001) was an American film producer, known as the co-founder of American International Pictures. Life and career Arkoff was born in Fort Dodge, Iowa, to Russian Jewish parents. He was the ...

. ''Kine Weekly'' called it a "money maker" at the British box office in 1960.

References

Citations

Sources

External links

* 1959 films 1950s historical films French historical drama films West German films German historical drama films Yugoslav historical drama films Films directed by Guido Brignone Films with screenplays by Sergio Leone Films set in ancient Rome Films set in the Roman Empire Films set in 3rd-century Roman Empire Films set in classical antiquity American International Pictures films Films scored by Angelo Francesco Lavagnino Sword-and-sandal films Cultural depictions of Aurelian Cultural depictions of Zenobia 1950s Italian films 1950s German films {{1950s-Italy-film-stub