Revolt of the Slaves (1960)

Original title:  La Rivolta degli Schiavi

Director:  Nunzio Malasomma

Writers:  Nicholas Patrick Wiseman, Duccio Tessari, Stefano Strucchi, Daniel Mainwaring

Composer:  Angelo Francesco Lavagnino

Starring:  Rhonda Fleming, Lang Jeffries, Dario Moreno, Ettore Manni, Wandisa Guida, Gino Cervi, Fernando Rey, Serge Gainsbourg, Jose Nieto

More info:  IMDb

Tagline:  WANTON . . . TEMPTRESS . . . She put the torch to an empire of sin!

Plot:  During the later years of the Roman Empire, the daughter of a wealthy patrician falls in love with a Christian slave.

My rating: 6/10

Will I watch it again?  Nope.

Roman 1:  The slaves are revolting!
Roman 2:  You're telling me, they stink on ice!

If only this picture were rich with dialogue like that but, alas.  I was hoping this would be more of a Sword & Sandal action flick.  It has some action (with some clumsily choreographed fight scenes) but there's also a lot of Christian drama (yawn).  A nasty side effect of the latter is the overuse of cheesy church organ music.  It's so bad.  One thing you don't see in these pictures are roles for black actors.  This one has a sizeable role for Vanoye Aikens (as Iface) and Dolores Francine (as Liubaia).  That was refreshing.  Iface is one of the bad guys but still.  The overly religious story doesn't do it for me at all.  Besides the religious part of it, movies like these about the persecution of Christians in the waning days of the Roman Empire almost always follow the same overused and boring-ass tropes and this one is no different. 

How many people on this production approved of Vibio's (Jeffries) costume (on the right)?  It's awful.

For my money, the best part of the movie was the last 15 or more minutes when the Christians are in the Colosseum when the prisoners are picked off one by one and then something shocking happens to the last one.  But, naturally, this is going to end on an uplifting note to give hope and inspiration to all.  Yawn.  When looking for movie posters to add to this entry, I came across a review of the Kino Blu-ray and the widescreen print looks gorgeous.  I watched a lousy fullscreen VHS copy.  I bet I might've liked it more if I had that Blu-ray but then it would've been a waste of money ultimately since I would only watch it once and get rid of it.  Sigh.