The Epic That Never Was (1965)
Category
🎥
Short filmTranscript
00:00:00 [Music]
00:00:29 I sentence you to death, Codgers, in the most beautiful possible way.
00:00:35 [Laughter]
00:00:39 [Music]
00:00:59 I sentence you to death, Codgers, in the most beautiful possible way.
00:01:05 [Laughter]
00:01:11 [Music]
00:01:39 I,
00:01:41 Claudius,
00:01:47 will tell you how to frame your laws.
00:01:52 Profiteering and bribery will stop.
00:01:55 This Senate will function only in the name of Roman justice,
00:02:03 and all of you who have acquired office dishonestly will be replaced by men who love Rome better than their purses.
00:02:17 126, take six.
00:02:20 He claims the full moon will see my death. If he's wrong, I'll have him killed. If he's right, I'll take him with me.
00:02:27 I can use a clever old voucher like that, even in death.
00:02:32 68, take eight.
00:02:34 My first act as God shall be one of clemency. I sent for you because I wish to put an end to your career as an historian.
00:02:43 You might write something I didn't like, but we shall postpone your death until tomorrow.
00:02:49 Charles Laughton, Flora Robson, Emlyn Williams, in a film that was made 28 years ago.
00:03:00 And this is the first time it's ever been shown.
00:03:03 Since 1937, it's been lying in tins, collecting dust in the film vaults, forgotten.
00:03:10 It was the first time that anyone had tried to turn Robert Graves' book into a film.
00:03:18 But it was an ill-fated attempt, and it was abandoned after only a few weeks' shooting.
00:03:23 But it was such a sensation at the time, and the mystery surrounding it was so intriguing,
00:03:27 that we thought you might like to know the inside story.
00:03:31 But getting the inside story hasn't been easy.
00:03:34 All the records have either been destroyed or lost, and so getting the facts has involved a lot of patient detective work.
00:03:41 Tracking down people who worked on it, those of them who are still alive anyway, to find out what really happened.
00:03:47 But the story begins, in more ways than one, with Robert Graves in New York.
00:03:53 Well, really the whole story starts with the appearance in my life of the Emperor Claudius.
00:03:58 And that was in about October 1929, just before I emigrated to Majorca, where I've been living ever since.
00:04:05 And I noted in my diary - I used to keep a sort of commonplace book in those days, I no longer do -
00:04:11 that I'd been reading the story of Claudius in Suetonius and Testas, and I knew there was a mistake somewhere.
00:04:19 And that one day I'd write the real story, if I ever needed the money.
00:04:24 I actually said it in those words.
00:04:28 Well, then I went to Majorca, and after about five years, money started running out, and I got caught in a very big land deal.
00:04:36 And I found that I had to make £8,000. I had to make £4,000.
00:04:43 I regard this as a very personal affair between me and Claudius.
00:04:47 So, the book came out, and I sold - I made £8,000.
00:04:53 I was able to take the mortgage off my house, and able to think about things again.
00:05:01 One person who read the book shortly after it came out was someone I later got to know, the late Sir Alexander Corder.
00:05:08 Corder at this time - and this was the early 1930s - realised, like everyone else did,
00:05:14 there was no hope for the British film industry as long as Hollywood continued to dominate the world market.
00:05:19 Production companies had long ago given up the unequal struggle,
00:05:23 and were reduced to turning out inferior little pictures as quickly and as cheaply as possible to meet the government quota,
00:05:29 hence the rather disparaging label "quota quickies".
00:05:33 Well, against all odds, Corder made up his mind to fight a lone battle,
00:05:38 and make a prestige picture which would challenge the best of Hollywood.
00:05:42 He decided to concentrate on historical subjects, on a budget which even then was absurdly small.
00:05:49 He produced and directed The Private Life of Henry VIII, with Charles Lawton.
00:05:54 It was a fantastic success, and made a fortune.
00:05:57 And even more amazing, it caused a sensation in America.
00:06:02 He followed this up with more lavish productions, like Catherine the Great, The Scarlet Pimpernel,
00:06:07 Fire Over England, with Lawrence Olivier and Flora Robson, Rembrandt, with Charles Lawton and Gertrude Lawrence.
00:06:13 And then he looked around for something even more ambitious,
00:06:16 something that would really shake the cinema world, an epic to dwarf all epics.
00:06:22 I, Claudius, seemed the perfect subject.
00:06:26 He still had Lawton under contract.
00:06:29 Now, here was a story of murder, lust and intrigue on the grand scale,
00:06:34 a violent struggle for power with ancient Rome as its spectacular setting.
00:06:40 He cabled Robert Grahams.
00:06:42 Well, I didn't... I thought that was over.
00:06:45 And then one day I got this cable from Korda that he wanted to buy the rights.
00:06:49 So I thought, fine. Korda was a remarkably good chap.
00:06:53 He was cynical, but he was real.
00:06:56 His only failing, if I may call it so, was making himself a centre of expatriate Hungarians
00:07:04 and really filling up the studios with Hungarians who were not altogether qualified for the jobs which he gave them,
00:07:12 especially in the English department.
00:07:14 Turning the book into a film script was obviously going to be a difficult task.
00:07:18 In one's innocence, one might be tempted to think that the best man to do it was Grahams himself.
00:07:23 I was eventually shown a bit of some sort of script
00:07:29 in which a character comes in, I think Caligula comes in and says,
00:07:33 "My armies are revolting," which is a rather odd use of English.
00:07:38 There's a lot of revolting in the script besides.
00:07:41 I don't know who wrote it. A character called Biero was somehow concerned, another Hungarian.
00:07:46 And it was... I was allowed, even given money, to write a script, which I did,
00:07:53 but of course that was filed somewhere.
00:07:56 Another surprising thing was that Korda, for various reasons,
00:08:00 had no intention of directing the epic himself.
00:08:03 Instead, he turned to a friend of his from Hollywood,
00:08:06 a man who was already something of a legend, the great Joseph von Sternberg,
00:08:12 the man who discovered Marlene Dietrich and directed the film that made her famous,
00:08:17 The Blue Angel.
00:08:19 Today, Sternberg lectures in the Department of Theatre Arts
00:08:23 in the University of California, Los Angeles.
00:08:26 Thirty years is... almost thirty years is a long time to remember,
00:08:32 but I recall very definitely that I had an engagement with...
00:08:39 I was in a nursing home and I had an engagement with
00:08:44 Louis Zatwil and Mrs. Wallace Simpson.
00:08:49 And that...
00:08:53 It was the afternoon when she had to leave England
00:08:56 and Alex Korda came instead and told me that the appointment was off
00:09:03 and brought to me two books by Robert Graves
00:09:11 and told me that he wanted me to direct Lartan in Claudius.
00:09:20 I asked him why and he told me that he was no longer able to direct Lartan
00:09:30 and that I should take over the direction of this work which I read.
00:09:39 They were two books by Robert Graves and I thought they were magnificent material.
00:09:48 He...
00:09:51 The next day, Lartan himself came, brought me some grapes
00:09:57 and asked me to direct him.
00:10:01 Lartan and Obron had been cast by Korda and I had no control over that.
00:10:10 And...
00:10:13 I went to work and designed the costumes and...
00:10:21 and chose the other members of the cast who were Flora Robson and...
00:10:27 and Emlyn Williams, a very bright young man,
00:10:33 and Ralph Richardson and Robert Newton
00:10:39 and some other distinguished members of the acting fraternity.
00:10:49 So now the cast included Merle Obron, Flora Robson and Emlyn Williams.
00:10:55 Robert Newton, alas, is no longer alive.
00:10:58 And when we asked Ralph Richardson what he remembered about it, he said nothing.
00:11:02 I was never in the cast.
00:11:05 But at the same time that Sternberg was talking to us,
00:11:08 Merle Obron was at her home in Beverly Hills.
00:11:11 She has her own version of how and why Korda wanted to make I, Claudius.
00:11:17 I was Alex's only star at the time, under contract to him, I mean.
00:11:22 I had done not very much, I was very young, but they'd all been very successful.
00:11:27 Henry VIII, the Scarlet Pimpernel, Don Juan,
00:11:31 and then The Dark Angel with Sam Goldwyn in America, which was a very big success.
00:11:37 And I think Alex wanted to really make me the big star.
00:11:44 And so he bought I, Claudius and cast Charles Lawton as Claudius and Messalina for me.
00:11:54 And then Alex decided that he would get Fon Sternberg to direct me,
00:11:59 because Fon Sternberg was a woman's director.
00:12:02 He just wanted to give me everything he could to make me shine.
00:12:06 She was to be a beautiful 15-year-old virgin,
00:12:10 forced to marry her 50-year-old cousin Claudius,
00:12:13 this stumbling, stuttering object of ridicule.
00:12:16 Messalina, who then degenerates into a depraved libertine
00:12:20 whose name has become a byword for immorality,
00:12:23 but an extraordinarily difficult part which any leading actress would have given their eye teeth to play.
00:12:30 Claudius' nephew was one of the most vicious, dissolute, and perverted tyrants of all time.
00:12:37 A psychopath who made himself emperor by slaughtering all his imperial relatives
00:12:42 and anyone else who happened to get in the way.
00:12:45 A wonderful part, this, for Emlyn Williams.
00:12:48 Yes, it was indeed a marvellous part. I've just been refreshing my memory.
00:12:53 As a matter of fact, I had worked for Cawdor already,
00:12:56 oddly enough with Merle, too, and Robert Donat.
00:12:59 It was Merle's second picture, I think, and my second picture,
00:13:02 and Robert's first in a film called Men of Tomorrow, about five years before this.
00:13:08 And for the year or two before, Claudius had been in my own play Night Must Fall in London,
00:13:17 and during it, Cawdor asked me to supper with him, which was very flattering, in his flat,
00:13:22 and we talked, and he said he would like to do, or to hear any ideas I had on any films I wanted to do,
00:13:29 and we talked at length about a film about Nijinsky, which I'd always wanted to do,
00:13:35 and that I should write it and play it, and also a film that I was very interested in,
00:13:40 the idea of a film about the Rattenbury murder case, for Merle and for Laurence Olivier.
00:13:47 But things, as so often happens, changed, and I went to America with my play,
00:13:53 and all that sort of came apart.
00:13:56 When I came back, I was rung up by my agent to play Caligula,
00:14:02 and I suppose as I had been spending the last two years lugging a hatbox around with in it a woman's head,
00:14:10 I suppose I was considered not bad casting for this little part.
00:14:15 Flora Robson, who in her younger days seemed condemned to play elderly character parts,
00:14:20 was to play her oldest one yet, the 80-year-old Livia, widow of Emperor Augustus and grandmother of Claudius.
00:14:28 When we called on von Sternberg and Merle Elbrin, Dame Flora Robson was also nearby, in Hollywood,
00:14:34 working on a John Ford picture for Metrogold with Mayer.
00:14:38 She was staying in the home of her friend the actor John Abbott.
00:14:42 I was playing, I was then under contact to Sir Alexander Corder,
00:14:47 and a little disturbed because I got so many very difficult character parts to play.
00:14:54 I had just played Queen Elizabeth I of England, in which my clothes were so tremendously heavy.
00:15:02 One dress weighed 200 pounds, and walking up and down those long corridors,
00:15:07 I finished panting for breath in the middle of this.
00:15:10 I also had a false nose and rather heavy crowns on my head, which would press into my head to make my head ache.
00:15:16 This one I played the old Empress Livia Augustus, who was over 80, and I had the most difficult makeup.
00:15:27 I had cotton wool pads put here to make my eyes very baggy,
00:15:32 and they used a poor collodion, kind of new skin over this to make it stick on,
00:15:38 and this was very hot, and my whole face was covered with liquid rubber.
00:15:43 The clothes weren't too heavy, I don't think, but in order to get this age,
00:15:48 and then I was in my early 30s, I developed a sort of palsy,
00:15:53 and used to twitch with my mouth to make myself seem much older than I was.
00:16:00 I was Alex Corder's special script girl, continuity for years,
00:16:07 and as such I was in charge of the continuity on I, Claudius.
00:16:12 You may wonder what on earth I'm doing sitting in this terrible, derelict old room,
00:16:16 but actually I'm in one of the rooms of what was the mansion of Denham Fisheries,
00:16:22 and years ago, when we made this film, 28 years ago I think it was,
00:16:28 when the filming was taking place in the studios at the other end of the bound,
00:16:33 this old house was the production headquarters.
00:16:37 Alex's own office was actually in the room above the one that I'm sitting in.
00:16:42 It's very sad and rather nostalgic to go up there now,
00:16:46 and see all the broken glass and the plaster peeling off the walls,
00:16:50 but in those days, when it was all beautifully furnished,
00:16:53 Alex used to sit at his desk up there, and it was from that desk,
00:16:57 looking out onto the beautiful scene of the trees and the water that you can see from the window,
00:17:03 it was there that Alex planned this film which was to be the best film he'd ever made, I, Claudius.
00:17:09 I was 16 at the time, and an art student at Chelsea Polytechnic,
00:17:14 studying scenic design, which is how I started in this business anyway.
00:17:17 And already people were talking about the fantastic sets at Denham.
00:17:21 I was fortunate enough to go down myself and see them, and they were fantastic.
00:17:26 Cordy's brother Vincent designed the sets,
00:17:29 and in the huge new studios at Denham, which had been specially built for Corda,
00:17:33 an army of craftsmen were recreating the palaces, the senate house,
00:17:37 and the temples of ancient Rome in all their splendour.
00:17:40 So the cast was lined up, the script finished,
00:17:44 and von Sternberg was almost ready to start shooting.
00:17:47 The lighting cameraman was the late Georges Perrinal,
00:17:51 one of the world's greatest photographers.
00:17:54 On February 15, 1937, von Sternberg walked onto the set
00:17:59 and began to shoot the epic that was to be Corda's biggest, most lavish picture.
00:18:03 We're going to see the rushes exactly as they were shot,
00:18:07 and now shown for the first time.
00:18:09 Members of the imperial family are arriving for the ceremonies,
00:18:12 deifying the late Emperor Augustus, who had ruled for 45 years,
00:18:16 and now is to be made a god by order of the senate.
00:18:19 The voice shouting instructions is von Sternberg's.
00:18:22 Flora Robson, as the ancient Empress Livia, widow of Augustus, arrives first.
00:18:28 All right, go ahead, take your positions.
00:18:33 Let her. Come on.
00:18:35 [The scene of the ceremony is shown.]
00:18:39 [The scene of the ceremony is shown.]
00:18:42 [The scene of the ceremony is shown.]
00:18:46 [The scene of the ceremony is shown.]
00:18:50 [The scene of the ceremony is shown.]
00:18:53 [The scene of the ceremony is shown.]
00:18:56 [The scene of the ceremony is shown.]
00:18:59 [The scene of the ceremony is shown.]
00:19:02 [The scene of the ceremony is shown.]
00:19:05 [The scene of the ceremony is shown.]
00:19:08 [The scene of the ceremony is shown.]
00:19:11 [The scene of the ceremony is shown.]
00:19:14 [The scene of the ceremony is shown.]
00:19:17 [The scene of the ceremony is shown.]
00:19:20 [The scene of the ceremony is shown.]
00:19:23 [The scene of the ceremony is shown.]
00:19:26 [The scene of the ceremony is shown.]
00:19:29 [The scene of the ceremony is shown.]
00:19:32 Next to arrive is the villainous nephew of Claudius, Emlyn Williams, as Caligula.
00:19:39 Right, cheer!
00:19:41 [The audience cheers.]
00:19:58 [The audience cheers.]
00:20:01 I don't remember having a make-up test for the part, which was odd,
00:20:08 which meant that I only met the director on my first day of shooting,
00:20:12 which was a Roman orgy, starting at 6.30 in the morning,
00:20:17 on a January or February day, and ending at 6.30 at night.
00:20:21 I was introduced to him, and he took me aside,
00:20:25 and he was extremely polite, and said,
00:20:28 "This part, you know, is a very cruel, degenerate man."
00:20:32 And I said, "Yes, I see that."
00:20:35 He said, "Perhaps so degenerate, perhaps a little bit sissy, not too much."
00:20:40 And I was glad of that, because I had had my fittings for the costumes,
00:20:45 which looked to me a little bit like, I think, two hostess gowns I was going to wear,
00:20:51 and a couple of short cocktail numbers, and a false fringe.
00:20:55 And so I had to say to myself, "Watch out."
00:20:58 He's the vilest, most despicable little reptile that the gods ever created.
00:21:03 He's unscrupulous, dishonest...
00:21:05 Vain, spiteful, lecherous, and cruel. You flatter me.
00:21:09 Enough, be silent.
00:21:11 Say that last thing again and turn your face, just your last line.
00:21:15 He's unscrupulous, dishonest...
00:21:19 That's right. Can I have it again, sir?
00:21:22 He's unscrupulous, dishonest...
00:21:24 Vain, spiteful, lecherous, and cruel. You flatter me.
00:21:27 Enough, be silent.
00:21:29 Cut.
00:21:31 Usually, of course, the one person who never appears in front of the camera is the director.
00:21:40 But on one rare occasion, at the end of a scene with Flora Robson,
00:21:43 just before the camera's switched off, Sternberg comes in to shot.
00:21:48 When is the full moon, Sir Cynos?
00:21:50 Tonight, Lady Livia.
00:21:52 Cut. Print that.
00:21:54 That's fine. That's fine. I need just...
00:21:57 I remember being quite excited the first day on the set to see a great director from Hollywood.
00:22:06 He always alarmed me a little bit. He was a bearded man who...
00:22:11 I think he was the last of the film directors who dressed up for the part.
00:22:15 He used to wear sometimes riding breeches with laced-up boots,
00:22:19 and a big sort of shooting jacket with very large pockets,
00:22:23 and a sort of silk turban round his head.
00:22:26 Other days, he'd come in in a silk dressing gown.
00:22:29 But it was those high boots I first was very surprised about.
00:22:33 But something different every day.
00:22:35 Despite the difficulties I had with some of the actors, and Mr. Lawton in particular,
00:22:43 he was magnificent in several of the scenes.
00:22:49 And he more than made up for the scenes which were not very good, but which would pass.
00:23:01 And he particularly... I remember one scene where he walks down after arriving in a litter,
00:23:12 and was very satisfactory in everything he did.
00:23:17 Right, action!
00:23:26 Uncle Claudius!
00:23:29 Uncle Cla-cla-cla-cla-claudius!
00:23:40 What would the pigs do without Uncle Cla-cla-cla-cla-claudius?
00:23:43 I'd better feed the cows if they get me!
00:23:47 Don't forget the goats!
00:24:09 I don't think I had any trouble with anyone, with the exception of Lawton,
00:24:22 who had some difficulty in getting into his part.
00:24:26 I had worked with Charles. Well, I really didn't work with him,
00:24:31 because I did my little bit in Henry VIII two days before...
00:24:37 No, no, after he finished the picture.
00:24:40 But he was always so nice to me.
00:24:43 As a matter of fact, the first day of shooting, when we were all in our costumes
00:24:50 and taking publicity stills, I looked at some of the other girls,
00:24:53 and I thought they looked so pretty with all their natural curly hair.
00:24:56 And here was I with my very straight Anne Boleyn hair and the headdress,
00:25:02 and I mumbled something about going up and making my hair all curly,
00:25:06 and Charles said to me, "You dare, and I'll kill you."
00:25:10 And really rather a sad experience, because I knew and respected Charles as a great actor,
00:25:21 and suddenly something very odd happened to him.
00:25:26 He would come on the set every day and get made up and get dressed,
00:25:35 and then say he couldn't find his character, and break down.
00:25:43 And many a time he'd come into my dressing room where I'd be made up,
00:25:48 ready to go on the set, and put his head in my lap and cry.
00:25:52 And I felt so sorry for him, because I knew he wasn't doing it on purpose.
00:25:57 But this went on and on and on. I don't know, it seemed like forever.
00:26:02 I don't know how long it did go on.
00:26:05 But we were delivered by a most unfortunate thing to me, an accident.
00:26:12 I had a motor car accident.
00:26:14 And so they cancelled the picture, and Lloyd's had to pay up a great deal of money.
00:26:22 Asiaticus, stand up. Not only are you a stuffed and puffed up...
00:26:28 Not only are you a profiteer...
00:26:30 Not only are you a profiteer, but since we're dealing in personalities,
00:26:33 you're a stuffed and puffed up glutton.
00:26:36 You'd sell your soul for the tail end of an anchovy.
00:26:40 Since no one else seems eager to show his eloquence,
00:26:44 I will inform you the conditions upon which I will accept your support.
00:26:51 I'm sorry, I've gone.
00:26:58 Since no one else seems eager to show his eloquence...
00:27:03 That's the wrong word.
00:27:05 What?
00:27:08 My Lord Sentius, I did not know you could also stutter.
00:27:15 I thought your talents were confined to neighing like a horse.
00:27:19 Is there anyone else who wishes to call attention to my misfortunes?
00:27:26 That's the broadest East End cockney I've ever heard in my life.
00:27:30 In fact, day after day, he used to arrive at the studio and say,
00:27:38 "I can't find the man, Joe. I can't get the man."
00:27:43 And he had the idea that perhaps if he started on a different sequence,
00:27:47 he could work himself into the film.
00:27:49 And so, as at that time, we were the only film company filming at Denham,
00:27:55 we built stage after stage on each of the many...
00:27:59 set after set on each of the many stages in the studios.
00:28:03 And each day we'd start on a different sequence
00:28:07 and hope that Charles would perhaps find the man.
00:28:10 And then one day he arrived breathless and rather late on the set,
00:28:14 pretty excited, and came up and said,
00:28:16 "Joe, I've got the man. I've found him.
00:28:19 "Don't you realise it's Edward VIII?"
00:28:22 And he got hold of a gramophone record
00:28:25 of Edward VIII's abdication speech to the nation.
00:28:28 And thereafter, he would never film
00:28:30 until he'd first of all retired to his dressing room,
00:28:33 which was a caravan on the set,
00:28:35 and played through Edward's last speech as king to the nation.
00:28:39 And after he'd heard it through, Charles would come
00:28:42 and try and play his part of Claudius in the film.
00:28:45 The public, thank heavens, never knows the private agonies
00:28:51 actors sometimes have to go through.
00:28:54 Stoneberg had a wonderful visual sense.
00:28:57 He liked huge sets when working on a grand scale.
00:29:01 And Claudius gave him enormous scope.
00:29:04 He was never a man to do things by halves,
00:29:07 but sometimes matters were inclined to get a bit out of hand.
00:29:11 And other people found they had problems too,
00:29:14 like John Armstrong, Corda's costume designer.
00:29:19 One morning, he asked me, "Have we any vestal virgins?"
00:29:24 I said, "Yes." He said, "How many?"
00:29:27 I said, "Six," which was the authentic number.
00:29:31 He said, "How were they dressed?"
00:29:33 I got him my drawing, which I took from a statue in Naples.
00:29:37 They were well covered with clothing,
00:29:40 with a kind of tiara on their heads.
00:29:43 A lure was not allowed.
00:29:45 In fact, they were buried alive if they broke their vows of chastity.
00:29:50 He looked at the drawing and said,
00:29:53 "This won't do for me. I want 60, and I want them naked."
00:29:58 He defined naked, bra and pants under a veil.
00:30:02 And he said, "I want them on the set tomorrow morning."
00:30:07 There was no arguing.
00:30:09 I went off to London to hold a parade of extras to choose the girls,
00:30:14 while the wardrobe set out to cut 60 circles of 5-foot radius out of scenic gauze.
00:30:21 Next morning, the vestal virgins duly appeared on the set,
00:30:26 diaphanous, holding tapers,
00:30:28 and arranged up a magnificent flight of steps in the temple scene.
00:30:33 It looked lovely, but it had nothing to do with the Roman religion.
00:30:40 Every director requires a different service from his script girl,
00:30:44 because they all work quite differently.
00:30:47 Von Sternberg was the first-class cutter,
00:30:50 and he always knew exactly which section of every angle he was going to use
00:30:54 and exactly where he was going to cut it.
00:30:56 I really first discovered what a brilliant cutter von Sternberg was
00:31:00 and how he edited the film in his mind before he ever started to shoot.
00:31:05 When on the first two Sundays during production,
00:31:08 three of us worked in the cutting rooms with von Sternberg as his assistants
00:31:13 while he started to edit the film which we had already taken.
00:31:17 You can still see those old cutting rooms.
00:31:20 They are, were in fact, the stables of this very house.
00:31:24 But like this old house, they're now in just the same terrible state of dilapidation.
00:31:30 We went and had a look at them this afternoon.
00:31:33 And I shall never forget those Sundays, winding and unwinding those thousands of feet of film
00:31:39 while the three of us tried to keep pace with von Sternberg,
00:31:42 who cut the material at a most prodigious rate.
00:31:47 [footsteps]
00:32:15 [cheering]
00:32:31 [footsteps]
00:32:45 Uncle Claudius!
00:32:47 [laughter]
00:32:50 Uncle Claudius!
00:32:52 [cheering]
00:33:00 What will the pigs do without you, uncle?
00:33:02 [laughter]
00:33:05 Where will the people of Germany get their food?
00:33:08 [cow mooing]
00:33:18 Don't forget the goats!
00:33:20 [laughter]
00:33:49 [laughter]
00:34:03 How wonderful to see you again, dear Uncle Claudius.
00:34:06 I thought you were on your farm.
00:34:07 I was on...
00:34:08 You were on order to attend.
00:34:10 I hear that you're teaching your pigs to read. Is that true?
00:34:13 My...pigs, why?
00:34:16 So as to have readers for all the Roman histories you write.
00:34:19 [silence]
00:34:23 [footsteps]
00:34:24 [laughter]
00:34:33 [cow mooing]
00:34:35 [laughter]
00:34:39 Stop that rabble laugh!
00:34:41 [laughter]
00:34:47 Grandmother, you remember my dear Uncle Claudius,
00:34:50 who prefers the society of pigs to that of the court?
00:34:53 I have asked Claudius to be present at these ceremonies and to be my guest at dinner tonight.
00:34:58 But grandmother, think of his table manners.
00:35:01 Be silent, you impudent puppy.
00:35:03 You take your uncle for a fool, but he's not.
00:35:06 I sometimes think he pretends to be one so as to make fools of us.
00:35:11 Far from being a fool, he's the last decent man left alive in Rome.
00:35:15 One can rely on him.
00:35:17 If he makes a promise, he keeps it.
00:35:19 And when he swears with the truth, it is the truth.
00:35:22 Am I right, Claudius?
00:35:24 [silence]
00:35:27 Don't let him start talking. He might have a stroke.
00:35:30 And you, Claudius, you think this nephew of yours is a harmless buffoon, but I know better.
00:35:35 He's the vilest, most despicable little reptile the gods ever created.
00:35:39 He's unscrupulous, dishonest.
00:35:41 Vain, spiteful, lecherous, and cruel. You flatter me.
00:35:45 Enough! Be silent!
00:35:47 I shall remember, Uncle, that you are not quite so stupid as you would like me to believe you are.
00:35:52 [silence]
00:35:59 An unpleasant youth.
00:36:02 Be careful of him, Claudius. He's the next emperor of Rome.
00:36:06 That old charlatan has read the stars, and he also predicts,
00:36:10 and that's why I sent for you, Claudius,
00:36:13 that I have much longer to live.
00:36:16 When is the full moon, Thrasyllus?
00:36:18 Tonight, Lady Livia.
00:36:20 He claims the full moon will see my death.
00:36:22 If he's wrong, I'll have him killed.
00:36:24 If he's right, I'll take him with me.
00:36:27 I can use a clever old vulture like that, even in death.
00:36:31 [silence]
00:36:35 The quality and the splendor of that still survives after nearly 30 years.
00:36:40 This, indeed, was an epic in the making.
00:36:43 Here's another scene.
00:36:45 This time in the Senate,
00:36:47 in which Caligula, who's just made himself emperor,
00:36:50 is indulging in an orgy of megalomania.
00:36:54 Right. Action.
00:36:56 [silence]
00:36:59 After a great deal of deliberation,
00:37:02 I have been commissioned by my colleagues
00:37:04 to ask the Senate to vote 50 gold pieces
00:37:07 to every soldier in our glorious army,
00:37:10 the same to be distributed at once.
00:37:13 The treasury is empty,
00:37:15 and unless the honored senator has the amount required
00:37:18 concealed on his generous person,
00:37:22 the army must continue to serve for patriotic reasons alone.
00:37:25 Enough of this oratory. Fill the treasury. Inment new taxes.
00:37:28 I want the army paid.
00:37:30 Impossible, Caesar.
00:37:32 The Roman people are already taxed beyond endurance.
00:37:35 Are the married people taxed?
00:37:36 No. Well, then tax them.
00:37:38 Tax the single.
00:37:40 Tax those that have children and those that have not.
00:37:43 Tax those who ride and those that go on foot.
00:37:46 Tax those that have doors and windows,
00:37:48 and tax those that haven't any.
00:37:50 [silence]
00:37:53 I don't think it will be necessary to take extreme measures.
00:37:56 I propose that we double the existing taxes.
00:37:59 The people will not complain
00:38:01 at having to pay for the privilege of being ruled
00:38:03 by so profound a thinker as the illustrious Caligula.
00:38:07 I could not have expressed such lofty sentiments better myself.
00:38:12 [silence]
00:38:16 I knew that the Senate would find a way out of the present difficulty,
00:38:19 and I have therefore prepared to reward it.
00:38:22 [footsteps]
00:38:26 [horse whinnies]
00:38:28 [footsteps]
00:38:39 [horse whinnies]
00:38:41 I now honor this noble house by appointing Incitatus,
00:38:46 the greatest resource in the empire, a member of the Senate.
00:38:50 Well, why does nobody greet him?
00:38:52 Who's the older senator? Up on your feet and welcome him.
00:38:55 [footsteps]
00:39:05 I've always felt really very sorry for that horse,
00:39:08 because there's never been an entrance in any film for man or beast
00:39:13 as much built up to as this one, as you've just seen.
00:39:17 And you hear the horse's hoofs off, the horse was there,
00:39:21 and because of an accident, the scene was never completed,
00:39:28 and as far as we know, that poor horse is still waiting to come on.
00:39:31 I do remember that day vividly, because it was my last day.
00:39:35 I didn't know it, but it was my last day, and I was standing around,
00:39:38 as you've just seen, and waiting to go on,
00:39:40 and one of the stagehands was standing there next to the horse,
00:39:43 who was dying to go on, and the director was standing not very far away,
00:39:48 in his costume, and this member of the crew turned to me and said,
00:39:52 "You know, if you put old Joe on that nag,
00:39:55 "you know, he might win the Grand National next month."
00:39:58 That was the last day.
00:40:01 And now Lawton again.
00:40:04 Claudia's found life less nerve-wracking, and certainly a good deal safer,
00:40:08 well away from the plotting and the throat-slitting that was going on in Rome.
00:40:13 And so he lived quietly on his farm at Capua.
00:40:17 And then one day, he sent for his doctor.
00:40:21 We've been waiting for hours, Doctor.
00:40:33 Is your master ill?
00:40:35 You know he cares little for his own health, sir. Don't be angry with him.
00:40:38 He sent for you to cure one of his pigs.
00:40:41 I could never be angry with Claudius.
00:40:43 What's wrong with the pig? Surely he has pigs enough?
00:40:46 It's the runt of the litter, Doctor. It's a little one.
00:40:49 Weak and stunted and almost blind. There's one like that in every litter.
00:40:53 And that's the one your master loves, eh, Narcissus?
00:40:58 [chittering]
00:41:01 Let me see the little patient.
00:41:15 Claudius! Bad news, that's why I'm late.
00:41:21 Rome's a madhouse. Tiberius has been dead for a week and no one knew.
00:41:26 Whose emperor?
00:41:28 Caligula.
00:41:30 They say that he choked Tiberius to death with a pillow
00:41:33 and tore the ring from his finger even before he'd stopped breathing.
00:41:36 Caligula.
00:41:41 Emperor.
00:41:43 His soldiers tear people out of their homes in the darkness of the night.
00:41:47 It's fortunate we live in the country, Claudius.
00:41:49 Who knows Caligula's blacklist?
00:41:53 [chittering]
00:41:55 How long have you been my slave, Narcissus?
00:42:08 Nine years, Master.
00:42:10 You're free now.
00:42:11 I don't want to leave you, Master. Let me stay with you.
00:42:14 [chittering]
00:42:16 Are you on Caligula's blacklist?
00:42:42 Then there's still time for you to flee.
00:42:44 It'll be months before your turn. You can easily leave.
00:42:47 My speech and my foot would betray me anywhere.
00:42:51 Besides, why shouldn't Rome's misfortunes be mine?
00:42:58 My lord Claudius, you are to proceed directly to the Hall of Justice.
00:43:09 [chittering]
00:43:11 What do you want with him? He's never harmed a fly.
00:43:17 We are not here to judge him but to arrest him.
00:43:19 - I'm his doctor. He's ill. - Not ill enough.
00:43:21 My orders are to bring Claudius or his body.
00:43:24 What are you going to do?
00:43:26 I'm more frightened than I thought I'd be.
00:43:37 Should we not see each other again?
00:43:39 Look after my home and the little runt.
00:43:43 I'm a bad friend, Claudius.
00:43:45 I can do more for that little pig than I can for you.
00:44:05 Come on.
00:44:07 Have I been here long?
00:44:13 Seven days since the Emperor became ill.
00:44:16 He must be feeling better now that he's asking for you.
00:44:20 [footsteps]
00:44:23 [footsteps]
00:44:25 [laughing]
00:44:50 [footsteps]
00:44:53 [footsteps]
00:44:56 [footsteps]
00:44:58 [footsteps]
00:45:27 Uncle Claudius, where have you been?
00:45:29 Go in at once. He's asking for you.
00:45:31 But be careful. He's in a dreadful state.
00:45:33 - Who's in there? - Musa, his doctor.
00:45:36 He's kept him in a room without any fresh air for a week.
00:45:38 It's impossible to breathe in there.
00:45:40 - What does he want with me? - I don't know.
00:45:42 But whatever it is, humour him. Because if you don't, he'll kill you.
00:45:45 He's got a sword. Thinks he's become a god.
00:45:47 He's mad. He always was. But now he's worse than mad.
00:45:49 He's possessed.
00:45:55 Ah, my Lord Claudius, I hope you're well.
00:45:58 Is that old quack Xenophon still treating you?
00:46:01 He's my best friend.
00:46:04 I think I could cure that stutter of yours.
00:46:07 Do you still limp?
00:46:10 I limp with my tongue and...
00:46:14 ...tutter with my leg.
00:46:18 Nature never quite finished me.
00:46:20 I could cure that limp of yours too.
00:46:23 I have a method of breaking bones in several places and resetting them.
00:46:27 I've become rich and famous, Claudius, and don't need clients.
00:46:33 But for a thousand gold pieces, I could cure you of all your ills.
00:46:38 Thank you, Doctor.
00:46:41 I was born on a battlefield of disease.
00:46:44 I nearly died three times before I was two years old.
00:46:48 And besides the usual rash and measles, which made my left ear slightly deaf,
00:46:53 I had malaria, erysipelas, and colitis.
00:46:57 I also acquired apparent infantile paralysis, which shortened my left leg.
00:47:06 And in the last few years after eating, I have a falling pain in my stomach.
00:47:11 But I shall be pleased to remain as I am if I get out of that room.
00:47:18 Alive.
00:47:20 Sit down on your knees.
00:47:46 How dare you remain standing in my presence?
00:47:48 I'm on duty, Caesar, and a soldier cannot kneel and guard his emperor at the same time.
00:47:52 You insolent fool.
00:47:54 Down on your knees!
00:47:56 Now get out.
00:48:05 Now get out.
00:48:07 It's good to see you're better, Caesar.
00:48:25 I haven't been ill. I'm simply undergoing a change.
00:48:28 It's the most momentous transformation that any human being has ever achieved.
00:48:34 A prophecy is about to be fulfilled.
00:48:38 I am being reborn.
00:48:42 I hope your condition is not too painful.
00:48:47 It is painful to be one's own mother.
00:48:49 Well, idiot, can't you see any change in me?
00:48:53 I was blind not to see it instantly.
00:48:56 You're no longer human.
00:48:58 May I be the first to worship you?
00:49:01 (MUMBLING)
00:49:04 It took you a long time to perceive that I'm no longer human.
00:49:08 (MUMBLING)
00:49:13 Have mercy. I was overcome.
00:49:16 I've only been used to the pigs.
00:49:20 My first act as god shall be one of clemency.
00:49:25 I sent for you because I wish to put an end to your career as an historian.
00:49:29 You might write something I didn't like,
00:49:32 but we shall postpone your death until tomorrow.
00:49:36 Cut. Print that. That's very good.
00:49:42 I don't know how much Edward VIII had to do with that.
00:49:47 And alas, we can't ask Lawton.
00:49:50 But I think that in that sequence, although Williams has the dominant part and position,
00:49:55 it's Lawton you watch because of this extraordinary sense of humility and shame,
00:50:01 underlying which is this wonderful sense of humanity and humour.
00:50:06 And strength, too.
00:50:08 Perhaps these were the very qualities that Lawton found in Edward VIII.
00:50:13 One doesn't know.
00:50:15 Anyway, in the next scene, we find out why Caligula
00:50:19 had decided to postpone the death sentence on Claudius.
00:50:22 It takes place in Caligula's palace,
00:50:25 just after Miss Alina has performed a dance specially arranged by Caligula himself.
00:50:30 Isn't she fantastically beautiful?
00:50:41 Fantastically beautiful.
00:50:46 Just as you, my dear uncle, are fantastically ugly.
00:50:49 What do you think of him, Miss Alina? Just look at him. He's more dead than alive.
00:50:53 He's only waiting for me to find an interesting way to kill him.
00:50:56 But does he fear death? No, he just squats there, trembling with your beauty.
00:51:00 Isn't that so, Claudius?
00:51:02 How can one conceal anything from the gods?
00:51:06 Claudius, I've decided.
00:51:15 You shall die an exquisite death.
00:51:19 How?
00:51:26 My god and my master.
00:51:29 Miss Alina, how would you like to marry Claudius?
00:51:34 My family have other plans.
00:51:41 What plans?
00:51:43 I'm promised a marriage to another.
00:51:45 Who?
00:51:47 Valens.
00:51:52 Valens?
00:51:54 He's no one of importance, Caesar. A captain of your bodyguard.
00:51:58 So you don't wish to marry Claudius, Miss Alina?
00:52:04 No, Caesar.
00:52:12 Get up.
00:52:14 Claudius, I condemn you to die through the hands of a beautiful woman.
00:52:24 To kill an ugly old man with a young wife. That's my decision.
00:52:28 This union should be an event for all Rome.
00:52:33 And for the medical profession, doctor.
00:52:37 An old idiot and a young dancer.
00:52:40 A remote descendant of Julius Caesar married to a remote descendant of Augustus.
00:52:46 What do you think the result will be?
00:52:48 A pair of crutches.
00:52:50 You Caesar's own you how stupid your jealousies are.
00:52:53 Come now, you two. Embrace.
00:52:55 Give me a sample of your affection.
00:52:58 Behold, I am generous as only a god could be.
00:53:03 I sentence you to death, Claudius, in the most beautiful possible way.
00:53:09 When eventually his mad nephew Caligula killed off practically everyone in the city,
00:53:29 and was himself murdered by one of his captains,
00:53:34 the soldiers found Claudius hiding behind a curtain.
00:53:39 He was their old boozing chum, you see.
00:53:43 He was a good guy, he was a good scout.
00:53:46 And so they, instead of having anyone else forcing them by the senate,
00:53:51 they said, "He's our emperor."
00:53:54 My two captains pushed their way through the crowd, dragging me behind them.
00:53:58 Gratis called out, "Hey, sergeant, look whom we have here.
00:54:01 "Bit of luck, I think it's old Claudius.
00:54:04 "What's wrong with old Claudius for emperor?
00:54:06 "The best man for the job in Rome, though he do limp and stammer a bit."
00:54:10 161, take six.
00:54:16 Right.
00:54:20 Right.
00:54:22 Gentlemen, the suggestion that we approve the election of a half-wit
00:54:27 is an insult to this distinguished assembly.
00:54:31 Before we adjourn for dinner,
00:54:38 may I be permitted to point out
00:54:42 that the proposed emperor has one leg shorter than the other.
00:54:49 And may I also draw your attention to the fact
00:54:52 that this leg being shorter is probably responsible for the other leg being longer.
00:54:58 Senators, the cause of the Roman Empire could find no better champion than Claudius.
00:55:08 I am ready to stand at his side.
00:55:11 Whether the senate endorses our choice or not,
00:55:17 I'm afraid it would be compelled to accept it.
00:55:20 Are you out of your senses?
00:55:22 You free us from the tyranny of a madman
00:55:24 only to deliver us into the hands of a stuttering idiot?
00:55:27 We'd become the laughingstock of the whole world
00:55:29 if we accept this dummy as emperor!
00:55:32 My lords,
00:55:37 I respect the constitutional rights of this noble house
00:55:44 and would only accept the acclamation of the army
00:55:49 if this noble house elects me...
00:55:52 Emperor!
00:55:56 My lord Centius,
00:56:04 I did not know you could also stutter.
00:56:11 I thought your talents were confined to neighing like a horse.
00:56:17 Is there anyone else who wishes
00:56:28 to call attention to my misfortunes?
00:56:32 Or shall I call attention to yours?
00:56:38 Centius, get up!
00:56:41 Not only are you a pompous ass and a hypocrite,
00:56:45 but you have acquired your position through bribery.
00:56:48 Asiaticus, stand up!
00:56:52 Not only are you a profiteer,
00:56:56 but since we're dealing in personalities,
00:56:58 you're a stuffed and puffed up glutton.
00:57:03 You'd sell your soul for the tail end of an anchovy.
00:57:08 Centius, get up!
00:57:13 You're rarely heard and your name is never mentioned,
00:57:19 but you control the senate with gold
00:57:21 accumulated by providing worthless grain to the people
00:57:24 and faulty supplies to the army.
00:57:30 Since no one else seems eager to show his eloquence,
00:57:34 I will inform you of the conditions
00:57:38 upon which I will accept your support.
00:57:42 I...
00:57:45 Claudius...
00:57:49 will tell you how to frame your laws.
00:57:53 Profiteering and bribery will stop.
00:57:59 The senate will function
00:58:01 only in the name of Roman justice.
00:58:06 And all of you who have acquired position dishonestly
00:58:11 will be replaced by men who love Rome
00:58:15 better than their purses.
00:58:18 I will break everything rotten in this senate
00:58:24 like an old dry twig.
00:58:27 I will...
00:58:29 On that basis only will I become your emperor.
00:58:36 Now let me hear your objections.
00:58:44 Now I will give the army the terms on which I will accept.
00:58:50 Caligula was murdered.
00:59:00 He was killed.
00:59:04 He was killed.
00:59:08 Caligula was murdered.
00:59:13 He ruled by force.
00:59:19 But a state such as I hope to establish
00:59:27 cannot condone murder.
00:59:30 For violence is an enemy to justice.
00:59:36 In the name of justice
00:59:38 I call upon the murderers of Caligula to step forward.
00:59:43 We killed a tyrant, Caesar.
00:59:49 But you broke your solemn oaths as Roman soldiers
00:59:53 to protect your emperor.
00:59:56 You didn't strike for your country.
01:00:03 You killed in the name of your own private grudges.
01:00:09 I was with you, Cassius, when the tyrant kicked you
01:00:12 but you were not content with one single murder.
01:00:16 You caused the death of Caligula's wife
01:00:19 and of hundreds at the palace.
01:00:22 What fate do you consider you deserve?
01:00:26 Death, Lord Edson.
01:00:31 For that answer
01:00:33 I will take your families under my protection.
01:00:38 But for the crime of murder
01:00:42 I must sentence you, Cassius, and you, Lupus, to...
01:00:50 death.
01:00:56 Death?
01:00:58 I will call upon the army to have that sentence executed.
01:01:05 I think personally
01:01:17 that this is one of the most moving, beautiful, and powerful speeches
01:01:21 I've ever seen on a screen.
01:01:23 It ranks in greatness and splendor to my mind
01:01:26 with Olivia's Crispin Day speech in Henry V
01:01:29 and on another plane it has the humour and the honesty and the pain
01:01:33 of Judy Garland's dressing room scene in A Star is Born.
01:01:37 Lawton here proves that he was kissed with genius
01:01:42 and I'm not in the least surprised that he went through such agony and despair
01:01:47 in bringing Claudius alive to the screen
01:01:49 because to me in that scene Claudius is alive
01:01:53 and resurrection is never easy.
01:01:56 He's one of the people who you could really apply the word genius to.
01:02:02 It's a very difficult word to really...
01:02:05 Charles would do his best.
01:02:07 It was something that you... Well, everybody knows that.
01:02:10 No other actor can quite do it the way he does it.
01:02:14 And of course he was difficult.
01:02:16 Anybody like that is difficult. He was a child.
01:02:19 He was a brilliantly gifted child
01:02:22 who had this instinct for acting.
01:02:25 He had a complex about his appearance.
01:02:28 He was a brilliantly natural, instinctive actor
01:02:31 but he wanted to rationalise his performances.
01:02:37 He wanted to feel that he really was governing them with his intelligence.
01:02:41 And an actor's intelligence is not the same as any other person's.
01:02:45 An intelligent actress is a fine actor
01:02:48 and he should have left that alone and just acted
01:02:51 but he wanted reassuring.
01:02:53 And in this case...
01:02:56 I know that he went to see Mr Sternberg...
01:03:00 I beg his pardon, Mr von Sternberg in hospital
01:03:03 and gave him grapes
01:03:06 but it looks to me as if when they got onto the studio floor
01:03:11 that Mr von Sternberg didn't give Charles very much.
01:03:17 What Charles needed was sun.
01:03:20 Sun, sun, and all he got, it seems to me, was frost.
01:03:25 And destiny, perhaps fortunately for our peace of mind,
01:03:30 is unpredictable.
01:03:32 Almost exactly a month after shooting began on this picture,
01:03:38 the blow fell.
01:03:40 I was going for a fitting, I remember now,
01:03:43 and I had this rather wild chauffeur
01:03:47 and every time we tried to make a street crossing
01:03:52 and I'd wonder if we were going to make it this time,
01:03:55 well, this time we didn't.
01:03:57 And the next thing I knew was
01:04:01 I was sort of coming to on a pavement,
01:04:05 surrounded by people.
01:04:07 I don't know where I was, but I could hear people saying,
01:04:10 "It's Merle Oberon, it's Merle Oberon."
01:04:12 And then I'd go out again and keep coming back and going.
01:04:16 And the next thing I knew I was in the emergency ward
01:04:21 being sewn up, and one of the surgeons said to me,
01:04:25 "What's your name?"
01:04:27 And having heard it on the street, I said, "Merle Oberon."
01:04:30 And he said, "Oh, come off it."
01:04:33 And it's rather sweet because he came up to me a few days later
01:04:36 and he said, "I must apologize."
01:04:38 He said, "You see, a lot of people come into emergency
01:04:40 "and they imagine they're all kinds of people."
01:04:43 We waited for a little while
01:04:46 and then decided to shelve the project.
01:04:50 They used to tease me after and say that
01:04:53 every time I had a cold, the bell would ring at Lloyd's.
01:04:57 Actually, it was quite a disappointment to me
01:05:03 because I thought that Claudius would have made a very fine film.
01:05:10 And in considering the events that led up to the close of Claudius,
01:05:20 I was rather sorry that actors had truncated my film.
01:05:31 There was no way of replacing Merle Oberon.
01:05:36 Actors had truncated my film.
01:05:39 Well, that sounds as if an actor or actress had come in deliberately
01:05:42 and willfully and just destroyed this product.
01:05:46 But actually, the person who really was nearly truncated
01:05:50 was poor Merle, being thrown through that windscreen,
01:05:53 which was the real accident that finished the whole thing.
01:05:57 And the other thing is Merle could not be replaced.
01:06:00 I do know that if the film had been going absolutely wonderfully
01:06:03 and was going to be the greatest success in the world
01:06:06 for everybody concerned with it at that moment,
01:06:09 and I had been in that taxi and gone through the windscreen,
01:06:12 even though I'd shot all this stuff,
01:06:14 I know that they would have replaced me.
01:06:17 The accident was an accident, but it was a godsend.
01:06:24 It was obvious that Charles was terribly unhappy,
01:06:30 Sternberg was unhappy, Korda was unhappy,
01:06:33 and Merle wasn't unhappy, but she was unhappy.
01:06:38 She was in hospital.
01:06:40 And it really was a very lucky chance,
01:06:45 once one was sure that Merle was all right.
01:06:47 So much so that last year I remember meeting Merle in New York
01:06:50 and we were discussing this, oddly enough,
01:06:52 and I said it was such a godsend in a way
01:06:56 that are you sure it wasn't Alex dressed up as a chauffeur driving the car?
01:07:00 And she said, of course, wicked.
01:07:03 And of course it couldn't be because there she was in hospital, poor girl.
01:07:06 But I'm sure that once they realised that beautiful face of Merle's,
01:07:11 which was cut, was not going to be permanently damaged,
01:07:16 I think they all sent her flowers, heaved a sigh of relief, and said, "Cut."
01:07:21 The rushes were terrific.
01:07:23 They said it would have been von Sternberg's greatest film,
01:07:26 and certainly what I saw of Lawton and Robson and Merle O'Brien was terrific.
01:07:33 But a beautiful dream has ended because Cordis just didn't want it.
01:07:38 (MUSIC PLAYS)
01:07:41 He keeps his dignity. He doesn't want to be shown,
01:07:53 his imperial face to be shown on the screen.
01:07:55 He doesn't mind books being written about him.
01:07:57 He didn't want to be portrayed, even by Charles Lawton.
01:08:01 Nothing came of it. Nothing perhaps ever will come of it.
01:08:05 But Cordis is having a proud smile somewhere about it.
01:08:09 I wonder if that's really going to be the end of I, Cordis,
01:08:18 or if someone else will make another attempt at it.
01:08:21 Robert Graves is so certain, so sure, that Cordis doesn't want to be portrayed,
01:08:28 but I wonder if he's right.
01:08:30 I'm only wondering, really, because of something Cordis himself says
01:08:33 at the very beginning of the book.
01:08:36 "It is addressed to posterity, yet my hope is that you,
01:08:43 "my eventual readers of a hundred generations ahead or more,
01:08:47 "will feel yourselves spoken to as if by a contemporary
01:08:52 "as often herodotous and Thucydides, long dead,
01:08:58 "seem to speak to me."
01:09:03 # DRAMATIC ORCHESTRAL MUSIC
01:09:07 # DRAMATIC ORCHESTRAL MUSIC
01:09:11 # DRAMATIC ORCHESTRAL MUSIC
01:09:15 # DRAMATIC ORCHESTRAL MUSIC
01:09:18 # DRAMATIC ORCHESTRAL MUSIC
01:09:31 # DRAMATIC ORCHESTRAL MUSIC
01:09:35 # DRAMATIC ORCHESTRAL MUSIC
01:09:39 # DRAMATIC ORCHESTRAL MUSIC
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01:09:45 # DRAMATIC ORCHESTRAL MUSIC
01:10:13 HE LAUGHS
01:10:16 HE LAUGHS
01:10:20 HE LAUGHS
01:10:23 HE LAUGHS
01:10:26 HE LAUGHS
01:10:29 HE LAUGHS
01:10:32 HE LAUGHS
01:10:35 [BLANK_AUDIO]