Demetrius and the Gladiators (1954)

With the advent of CinemaScope in 1953, the movies became bigger, grander, and more expansive, as befitted the new anamorphic format.  And as if to emphasise the new screen size, movie posters became bigger, grander, and more expansive as well, with landscape designs becoming more and more prevalent.  The first CinemaScope movie was The Robe (1953), a biblical drama starring Richard Burton.  As can be seen from the poster above, it spawned a sequel that featured a character from that first movie, the slave Demetrius played by Victor Mature.

What’s interesting about this particular poster is its devotion to cramming in as much incident from the movie as possible, much like the screen image audiences would see, a wide, panoramic view of the action.  There’s the carousing and revelries of the citizens of Rome (that might not be consensual given the look on the woman’s face in the bottom left hand corner).  There’s the sight of three tigers all leaping at Demetrius in the arena (with the Coliseum and another gladiator highlighted behind them), and in the bottom right hand corner the figure of Peter (played by Michael Rennie) clasping the robe that will be passed to Demetrius.  And almost taking centre stage, Demetrius and Messalina (played by Susan Hayward) locked in an embrace that unfortunately makes the titular hero look like a vampire feeding off his latest victim.

With the movie’s villain, Caligula, relegated to the far background of the Romans and their debauchery, the poster encapsulates several of the movie’s main highlights but saves room for its most important attributes.  These are the technical advancement (and miracle) of CinemaScope, along with the innovation that is “high-fidelity directional-stereophonic sound” (not forgetting the movie’s having been filmed in Technicolor as well).  Leaving no room for its cast or director (at the very least), the poster makes no effort to include anything further than the title and it’s relation to The Robe; it’s as if it expects moviegoers to be aware of who’s in it etc. already.

Making a virtue of promoting the movie’s spectacle, this poster for Demetrius and the Gladiators is a visual treat, drawing the eye here and there, and stripping back the usual cast and crew information in favour of those arresting images.  It’s a bold move, but one that pays off handsomely.

Agree?  Disagree?  Feel free to let me know.