1956 - HELEN OF TROY, one of those big budget sword and sandal epics

How did the director Robert Wise, generally a man of taste get mixed up with this film?  This is the classic story of Helen, queen of Sparta who falls in love with Paris, a prince of Troy.  As in the Greek legend it all leads to the siege of Troy which goes on for years.  The war finally ends with the Trojans dragging the Trojan horse into the city.  The horse is full of Greek soldiers who sneak out and destroy the city from the inside.  "Beware of Greeks bearing gifts," says Cassandra and she's not kidding.

Warner Brothers cast a couple of unknowns as the leads.  A French actor Jacques Sernas as Paris and some Italian sex symbol Rossana Podestà as Helen.  Playing Helen's servant is Brigitte Bardot and I would have to say I think they got the casting backwards.  The supporting cast is the usual bunch of English actors hired to class up one of these big budget epics.

Anyway back to Robert Wise.  Apparently he was looking to shoot a film in widescreen and decided to take this project on. Whatever, the film looks pretty good with the usual cast of thousands deployed for maximum movie carnage.

 

Helen Of Troy is entertaining in the usual way these big budget films are.  Lots of extras, big sets and lots of large scale battles.

The film runs 118 minutes and was written by Hugh Gray, N. Richard Nash and John Twist although I don't think they put a whole lot of effort into the screenplay.