The Revolt of the Slaves (1960)

Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??

Brilliant and touching

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

The Revolt of the Slaves can be enjoyed by those 14 and older. The movie provides light entertainment with little thought. The Revolt of the Slaves does command your attention by its picturesque sets and wonderful costuming. The movie contains enough sword fighting and wrestling matches to keep you interested. The Revolt of the Slaves moves quickly. You go from fighting scenes to beautiful peaceful scenes where there are plenty of beautiful women to keep keep you looking for more. The musical scores in this film come at dramatic times. This is a typical Christian persecution film. Pass the popcorn and soda to enjoy a night of film. I give it four thumbs up.

This is a typical "sword and sandal" so called "epic" of the early 1960s when these roman rebellion movies were being churned out by the tons by Italian producers. Steve (Mr. Hercules himself) Reeves got this sword and sandal stuff going with his movies "Hercules" and "Hercules Unchained"....to great and smashing box office success. Italian producers then on skimpy budgets hired cheap Italian actors and actresses occasionally thrown in with an American star, such as in this film with Rhonda Fleming to improve the box office. The movies were always about a city of people oppressed by the ruling clan and usually had a well muscled down actor to lead the people in a revolt. In this film, Lang Jeffries lacks the physique of Steve Reeves or Mark Forrest, but does an admirable job as the leader of a band of slaves....he leads them on a rebellion to stop persecution by Roman rulers...along the way a love/hate relationship develops between Fleming and Jeffries....and yes they fall in love. Typical of the sword and sandal movies, evil rulers, mean soldiers, whippings, and a slave revolt. If you like the peplum you will like this film.

Revolt of the Slaves is loosely based on a famous novel called Fabiola written by Cardinal Wiseman in the 1850s. It strays drastically from the original story, keeping some of the same characters (in particular the martyrs Sebastian and Agnes), and some of the same scenes, but downplaying martyrdom as a whole, and trying to make a movie that could be called "Vibio saves the Christians." The "Vibio" character is not part of the Fabiola story. He is introduced as a slave who is also a Christian, but he isn't about to be a martyr. He rescues Christians a number of times throughout the movie. Action scenes are everywhere in this movie, and every one of them is added--none are from the book.I loved the book Fabiola, and I found this to be a deconstruction of it, not only in story but in philosophy. The screenwriters had some sympathy for the Christians, and portrayed them somewhat positively, but wanted to make them safe and happy in this world. If you know anything about the Diocletian persecution, Christians were anything but safe in those days. Faith is present in some of the characters, and it comes in handy, but physical combat seems to be the preferred mode of doing business. This movie had potential, but it was just Hercules vs. the pagan Romans.

Those Biblical "epics" of the 1950's and early 1960's usually fell into two categories. There were the lavish, big-studio productions such as "Quo Vadis" and "The Robe" and then there were the lesser, sword-and-sandal productions exemplified by the "Hercules" movies."Revolt of the Slaves" is one of the few productions to fall in between these two categories. It has the big-budget look of a Hollywood spectacle -- sharp wide-screen photography, handsome sets and costumes, etc. -- coupled with the kind of script and direction more closely identified with those made-in-Italy mini-epics.Even the star of the show, Rhonda Fleming, is something of an "in-betweener." She's not quite up in the Deborah Kerr or Jean Simmons league but she's clearly a notch above, say, Sylva Koscina. Unfortunately, she's about ten years too old to be playing this part, especially since she's matched with an obviously-younger Lang Jeffries. (Though about to be married in real life, there's not much on-screen chemistry between these two.)As is often the case with these pious-Christians-vs-pagan-Romans affairs, the plot works best when it's content to be an adventure or a romance but turns stilted and even a bit cloying when the religious angle is stressed.One item of note: the scene early in the movie when slave-boy Lang Jeffries is whipped across his bare chest is unusually well-staged, especially in terms of the physical relationship between the whipper, the whippee, and the camera. Seeing this scene on TV without the benefit of letter-boxing will not do it justice. (It ranks 2nd in the book "Lash! The Hundred Great Scenes of Men Being Whipped in the Movies.") Jeffries also feels the sting of a whip in "Alone Against Rome" but this time on his bare back, thus making him one of the few actors in screen history to be flogged on both sides of his torso.