''Constantine and the Cross'' (Italian: ''Costantino il grande'') is a 1961
historical drama film
A historical drama (also period drama, costume drama, and period piece) is a work set in a past time period, usually used in the context of film and television. Historical drama includes historical fiction and romances, adventure films, and sw ...
about the early career of the emperor
Constantine
Constantine most often refers to:
* Constantine the Great, Roman emperor from 306 to 337, also known as Constantine I
*Constantine, Algeria, a city in Algeria
Constantine may also refer to:
People
* Constantine (name), a masculine given name ...
, who first legalized and then adopted
Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...
in the early 4th century. The fictionalised film only stretches as far into his life as the
Battle of the Milvian Bridge in AD 312.
It was also known as Constantine the Great or Constantino il Grande - In Hoc Signo Vinces.
[CONSTANTINE THE GREAT "(Costantino Il Grande - In Hoc Signo Vinces)"
Monthly Film Bulletin; London Vol. 29, Iss. 336, (Jan 1, 1962): 153.]
Premise
Constantine wins a battle and is sent to Rome. On the way he and his friend Hadrian are attacked by bandits. Hadrian is nursed back to health by some Christians, including Livia, wh falls in love with Hadrian. Constantine discovers the bandits were sent by Maxentius, Constantine's rival for power.
Constantine watches some Christians be eaten by the lions. He jumps into the arena to defend a surviving child, and asks for the other Christians to be set free.
Livia is arrested. Hadrian, who has fallen in love with her, arranges for her to escape from prison. Constantine is blamed, and branded a traitor by the Romans. Constantine leaves his bride to be, Princes Fausta, and learns from his dying father, the Emperor of Gaul, that his mother Helena is a Christian.
Maxentius persecutes Christians and attacks Constantine in Gaul. Constantinus defeats Maxientus and becomes Emperor of Rome alongside Fausta, while Helena blesses them both.
Cast
*
Cornel Wilde
Cornel Wilde (born Kornél Lajos Weisz; October 13, 1912 – October 16, 1989) was a Hungarian-American actor and filmmaker.
Wilde's acting career began in 1935, when he made his debut on Broadway. In 1936 he began making small, uncredited app ...
as
Constantine
Constantine most often refers to:
* Constantine the Great, Roman emperor from 306 to 337, also known as Constantine I
*Constantine, Algeria, a city in Algeria
Constantine may also refer to:
People
* Constantine (name), a masculine given name ...
*
Belinda Lee
Belinda Lee (15 June 193512 March 1961) was an English actress.
A profile for the British Film Institute's Screenonline website asserts: "of all the Rank Organisation's starlets, Belinda Lee stands out as the most notorious, yet paradoxicall ...
as
Fausta
*
Massimo Serato
Massimo Serato, born Giuseppe Segato, (31 May 1916 – 22 December 1989) was an Italian film actor with a career spanning over 40 years.
Serato was born in Oderzo, Veneto, Italy and started appearing in films in 1938. He played leading roles in ...
as
Maxentius
*
Christine Kaufmann
Christine Maria Kaufmann (; 11 January 1945 – 28 March 2017) was a German-Austrian actress, author, and businesswoman. The daughter of a German father and a French mother, she won the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year – Actress f ...
as Livia
*
Fausto Tozzi
Fausto Tozzi (29 October 1921 – 10 December 1978) was an Italian film actor and screenwriter. He appeared in 70 films between 1951 and 1978. He wrote the script for ''The Defeated Victor'', which was entered into the 9th Berlin Internation ...
as Hadrian
*
Tino Carraro
Agostino Carraro (1 December 1910 – 12 January 1995) was an Italian stage, television and film actor.
Life and career
Born in Milan, Carraro started acting at young age in several amateur stage companies. Carraro then graduated at the , ...
as
Maximian
*
Carlo Ninchi
Carlo Ninchi (31 May 1896 – 27 April 1974) was an Italian film actor. He appeared in more than 120 films between 1931 and 1963. He was born in Bologna, Emilia-Romagna, and died on 27 April 1974 in Milan, Lombardy, Italy.
Selected filmogra ...
as
Constantius Chlorus
Flavius Valerius Constantius "Chlorus" ( – 25 July 306), also called Constantius I, was Roman emperor from 305 to 306. He was one of the four original members of the Tetrarchy established by Diocletian, first serving as caesar from 293 ...
*
Vittorio Sanipoli
Vittorio Sanipoli (1915–1992) was an Italian stage, film and television actor. He appeared in around a hundred films and television series between 1942 and 1980.
Life and career
Born Luciano Sanipoli in Genoa, he made his acting debut in 1939 ...
as
Apuleius
Apuleius (; also called Lucius Apuleius Madaurensis; c. 124 – after 170) was a Numidian Latin-language prose writer, Platonist philosopher and rhetorician. He lived in the Roman province of Numidia, in the Berber city of Madauros, modern- ...
*
Nando Gazzolo
Ferdinando "Nando" Gazzolo (16 October 1928 – 16 November 2015) was an Italian actor and voice actor.
Biography
Born in Savona, the son of the actor and voice actor Lauro Gazzolo and EIAR radio announcer Aida Ottaviani Piccolo, Gazzolo debuted ...
as Licinius
*
Annibale Ninchi as Galarius
*
Elisa Cegani
Elisa Cegani (11 June 1911 – 23 February 1996) was an Italian actress. She appeared in 60 films between 1935 and 1983.
Partial filmography
* ''Aldebaran'' (1935) - Nora Bandi
* ''Cavalry'' (1936) - Speranza di Frassineto
* ''The Countess ...
as Elena
*
Franco Fantasia
Franco Fantasia (5 March 1924 – 10 November 2002) was an Italian film actor, stuntman and fencing master. He appeared in more than one hundred films from 1951 to 2002. He was the brother of actor Andrea Fantasia. Illness and Death
Septemb ...
as Roman Soldier
*
Loris Gizzi
Loris Gizzi (16 August 1899 – 6 October 1986) was an Italian actor and voice actor.
Life and career
Born in Rome, after his university studies Gizzi attended a school of dance and singing. He abandoned the courses when he became an employee ...
as Roman Prosecutor
*
Enrico Glori
Enrico is both an Italian masculine given name and a surname, Enrico means homeowner, or king, derived from ''Heinrich'' of Germanic origin. It is also a given name in Ladino. Equivalents in other languages are Henry (English), Henri ( French), ...
as Livia's Father
* Jole Mauro as Celi
*
Nando Tamberlani
Nando Tamberlani (1896–1967) was an Italian film actor. A character actor in Italian cinema of the postwar era, he was the brother of actor Carlo Tamberlani. Another brother Ermete Tamberlani was also an actor. He appeared in a number of peplum ...
as
Diocletian
*
Renato Terra
Renato Terra (26 July 1922 in Naples – 28 November 2010 in Rome) had a career working in film as an actor, and has appeared in over 80 movies. In 1977 he retired to become a poet.
Young, he attended the Experimental Center of Cinematography in ...
as Jailer
*
Lauro Gazzolo
Lauro Gazzolo (born Ilario Gazzolo; 15 October 1900 – 2 October 1970) was an Italian actor and voice actor.
Biography
Born in Nervi in Genoa, Gazzolo began his career on screen in 1938 starring in the comedy film ''The Document'' and bec ...
as Amodius
Production
Filming took place in August 1960, with locations in Yugoslavia and studio work in Rome. While filming a scene in Rome Cornel Wilde was scratched by a lion. Filming was completed by November.
Release
''Constantine and the Cross'' was released in Italy in January 1961. It was released in the United States in December 1962.
Reception
The ''New York Times'' called it "one of those ponderous costumed tabloids that's trampled history to death and turned what's left of its fragments into boring banalities."
The ''Monthly Film Bulletin'' said "the familiar ingredients of this tired spectacle - lions, fair haired Christian girls, torture chambers, battles, assassination attempts, intrigue - fail to arouse any noticeable excitement in the director or the cast."
The movie was one of Belinda Lee's more widely seen European films.
According to Gary Smith, film historian " The film is memorable for its impressive battle scenes (reused in countless peplum films for years to come) and because of the striking presence of Belinda Lee as Constantine’s wife Fausta."
See also
*
List of historical drama films This is an index of lists of historical films.
By country of origin
* List of Estonian war films
* List of Polish war films
* List of Romanian historical films
* List of Russian historical films
* List of Vietnamese historical films
By era ...
*
List of films set in ancient Rome
This article lists films set in the city of Rome during the Roman Kingdom, the Roman Republic, or the Roman Empire. The films only partly set in Rome are so noted.
The founding of Rome
Films set during the founding of Rome include:
The Roman K ...
References
Sources
*
External links
*
*
*
''Costantine and the Cross''at
Variety Distribution
Variety Distribution is an Italian-based film distribution company.
It distributes Italian films worldwide, produced from the 1930s onward.
History
Variety Distribution (formerly Variety Film and Variety Communications) has been in the film p ...
*[COSTANTINO IL GRANDE - IN HOC SIGNO VINCES
Constantine and the Crossat Letterbox DVD
{{Authority control
1961 films
1960s biographical films
Italian biographical films
Peplum films
Films set in ancient Rome
Films set in the Roman Empire
Films set in the 4th century
Religious epic films
Biographical films about Roman emperors
Films scored by Mario Nascimbene
Sword and sandal films
1960s Italian-language films
English-language Italian films
1960s Italian films