Thursday, November 19, 2009
The Fall of the Roman Empire: Limited Collector’s Edition
In 1964, Encyclopedia Britannica film producer, William Deneen got permission from Hollywood film producer, Samuel Bronston to use the fabulous sets for The Fall of the Roman Empire to make a series of educational shorts about the Roman Empire. An exact replica of Rome was built near Madrid, Spain for the feature film starring Sophie Loren and Alec Guiness leading an international cast. The three educational shorts produced by Deneen were:
Life in Ancient Rome
Julius Caesar - The Rise of the Roman Empire
Claudius: Boy of Ancient Rome
His writer for these films was Elmore Leonard! This was during a hiatus in Elmore’s writing career when he earned a living doing freelance advertising and wrote a series of Encyclopedia Britannica films for Deneen. Here is an earlier post on Elmore’s EB films.
Educational films are cheesy by nature, but using the incredible sets from Madrid, elevated these three shorts to a different level altogether. They were still badly acted and directed, but they were incredible to look at. As for Elmore’s scripts, they were, well…educational. Get Shorty it ain’t, but it’s an important part of Elmore’s evolution and journey.
If you are a completist and must these films, make sure you get: The Fall of the Roman Empire: Limited Collector’s Edition. Accept no substitute. Otherwise you won’t get Disc 3: “A Collection of Historic Films About Ancient Rome, All Shot on the Film’s Sets!” The regular two-disc deluxe edition does not have the extra disc.
