Helen of Troy ** (1956, Rossana Podestà, Jacques Sernas, Cedric Hardwicke, Stanley Baker) – Classic Movie Review 12,267

Helen of Troy (1956, Rossana Podestà),

Italian sexpot Rossana Podestà’s most memorable role was as Helen in Helen of Troy, made by Robert Wise in 1956. She could not speak English so she learned her lines by rote with a voice coach, but the movie gave her international exposure.

Director Robert Wise’s 1955 epic historical drama film Helen of Troy [Elena di Troia] stars Rossana Podestà in her most memorable role as Helen, Jacques Sernas, Cedric Hardwicke, and Stanley Baker. The film was made entirely in Italy and shot in CinemaScope and WarnerColor. It co-stars Niall MacGinnis, Maxwell Reed, Nora Swinburne, Robert Douglas, Torin Thatcher, Harry Andrews, Janette Scott, Ronald Lewis, Eduardo Ciannelli, Esmond Knight and a young Brigitte Bardot in her first film outside France, as Helen’s handmaiden Andraste.

Helen of Troy is a Warner Bros epic made at Cinecittá studios in Rome and in Punta Ala, Grosseto, by director Wise, who seems to be in deep trouble with an unhappy script by John Twist and Hugh Gray that is far removed from its source in Homer’s poems The Iliad and Odyssey. The Greeks versus Trojans action sequences in widescreen and colour, and the scene of the Greek descent from the Trojan horse, are its only real special distinction. It works quite impressively on the action sequences front, thanks to the high production values and the rousingly staged battle scenes.

Lithuanian-born French actor Sernas and Italian actress Podestà seem cast mainly for their good looks as Paris and Helen. Podestà’s performance is held back because could not speak English and had to learn her lines by rote with a voice coach. Sernas’s performance is also held back because of language, and his English-language voice is provided by Edmund Purdom, though Esmond Knight was his English dialect coach. The British stalwarts, cast for their acting (particularly Hardwicke as Priam, Baker as Achilles, Nora Swinburne as Hecuba, Torin Thatcher as Odysseus, and Harry Andrews as Hector) are welcome and could have done something more had the script allowed.

Some other distinction comes from the cinematography by Harry Stradling Sr, the music, which is scored by Max Steiner, and the production, which is designed by Edward Carrere and Ken Adam.

It cost $6 million, and earned $3.2 million in the US.

Also in the cast are Niall MacGinnis, Robert Douglas, Harry Andrews, Brigitte Bardot, Nora Swinburne, Torin Thatcher, Janette Scott, Ronald Lewis, Eduardo Ciannelli, Marc Lawrence, Maxwell Reed, Robert Brown, Barbara Cavan, Terence Longdon, Patricia Marmont, Guido Nolan, Tonio Selwart, George Zoritch, and Esmond Knight.

The Greeks’ assault on the walls of Troy features shots copied from a sequence in the Persian attack on Babylon in D W Griffiths’s 1916 silent film classic Intolerance. Shots from this sequence are reused in the 1963 film Jason and the Argonauts.

The script changes the story to show Paris as a heroic leader and the Greek lords as pirates using Helen’s flight as an excuse to win the treasures of Troy. The 2003 miniseries Helen of Troy partly uses this same plot.

Sergio Leone was one of the second unit directors, able to communicate directly with the director in French. Yakima Canutt and Raoul Walsh were also second unit directors. There are a lot of cult names involved.

Allen Pomeroy is the stunt coordinator and Madi Obolensky is in charge of the bacchanal choreography, which sounds like a fun job.

Rossana Podestà in 1965.

Rossana Podestà was born on June 20, 1934 in Tripoli in the Italian colony of Libya. She was an Italian sex siren of the mid-50s and 60s, best known for Ulysses (1954), Le Ragazze di San Frediano (1955), Helen of Troy (1956) and Raw Wind in Eden (1958). She died on December 10, 2013 in Rome, Italy.

Brigitte Bardot retired from showbiz in 1973 after acting in 47 films.

Thora Janette Scott (born 14 December 1938) gave up her career in 1966 on marrying her second husband Mel Tormé.

Terence Longdon (14 May 1922 – 23 April 2011) was born Hubert Tuelly Longdon in Newark-on-Trent, Nottinghamshire, England. He was Drusus in Ben-Hur (1959), had a major support role in the 1958 Another Time, Another Place, was in four of the earliest Carry On films (Carry On Sergeant, Carry On Nurse, Carry On Constable, Carry On Regardless), and starred in the B-movie thriller Clash by Night (1963).

Ronald Glasfryn Lewis (11 December 1928 – 11 January 1982), was a Welsh actor known for his aggression. He received two black eyes in 1965, one from a man who had taken his car keys as Lewis was unfit to drive, and another, at his home in Grays, from the arresting police officer.

Helen of Troy [Elena di Troia] is directed by Robert Wise, runs 118 minutes, is made and released by Warner Bros, is written by John Twist and Hugh Gray, adapted from Homer’s poems The Iliad and Odyssey by Hugh Gray and N Richard Nash. is shot in CinemaScope and WarnerColor by Harry Stradling Sr and Sidney Hickox (second unit photographer), is produced by Giuseppe De Blasio (production manager) and Maurizio Lodi-Fè (production manager), is scored by Max Steiner, is designed by Edward Carrere and Ken Adam (assistant art director).

The cast are Rossana Podestà as Helen of Troy, Jacques Sernas as Paris, Sir Cedric Hardwicke as Priam, Stanley Baker as Achilles, Niall MacGinnis as Menelaus, Robert Douglas as Agamemnon, Nora Swinburne as Hecuba, Torin Thatcher as Odysseus, Harry Andrews as Hector, Ronald Lewis as Aeneas, Brigitte Bardot as Andraste, Marc Lawrence as Diomedes, ruler of Aetolia, Maxwell Reed as Ajax, Prince of Salamis, Robert Brown as Priam’s youngest son Polydorus, Barbara Cavan as Cora, Patricia Marmont as Andromache, Guido Notari as Nestor, Tonio Selwart as Alephous, George Zoritch as Singer, Esmond Knight as High Priest, Terence Longdon as Patroclus, Janette Scott as Cassandra, and Eduardo Ciannelli as Andros.

© Derek Winnert 2022 Classic Movie Review 12,267

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