''Duel of Champions'' (Italian: ''Orazi e Curiazi'') is a 1961 film about the
Roman legend
Roman mythology is the body of myths of ancient Rome as represented in the literature and visual arts of the Romans. One of a wide variety of genres of Roman folklore, ''Roman mythology'' may also refer to the modern study of these represen ...
of the
Horatii
In the ancient Roman legend of the kingdom era, the Horatii were triplet warriors who lived during the reign of Tullus Hostilius. The accounts of their epic clash with the Curiatii and the murder of their sister by Publius, the sole survivor ...
, triplet brothers from Rome who fought a duel against the Curiatii, triplet brothers from
Alba Longa
Alba Longa (occasionally written Albalonga in Italian sources) was an ancient Latin city in Central Italy, 12 miles (19 km) southeast of Rome, in the vicinity of Lake Albano in the Alban Hills. Founder and head of the Latin League, it was d ...
in order to determine the outcome of a war between their two nations.
This film was directed by
Ferdinando Baldi
Ferdinando Baldi (19 May 1917 – 12 September 2007) was an Italian film director and screenwriter.
Biography
Baldi was born in Cava de' Tirreni, Salerno, on 19 May 1917. His early film work began in Italy in the early 1950s with films s ...
and
Terence Young Terence or Terry Young may refer to:
*Terence Young (director) (1915–1994), British film director
* Terence Young (politician) (born 1952), Canadian Conservative Party politician
* Terence Young (writer), Canadian writer
* Terry Young (American p ...
. The screenplay was written by
Ennio De Concini,
Carlo Lizzani
Carlo Lizzani (3 April 1922 – 5 October 2013) was an Italian film director, screenwriter and critic.
Biography
Born in Rome, before World War II Lizzani worked as a scenarist on such films as Roberto Rossellini's ''Germany Year Zero'', ...
,
Giuliano Montaldo
Giuliano Montaldo (born 22 February 1930) is an Italian film director.
Biography
While he was still a young student, Montaldo was recruited by the director Carlo Lizzani for the role of leading actor in the film ''Achtung! Banditi!'' (1951). ...
and
Luciano Vincenzoni
Luciano Vincenzoni (; 7 March 1926 – 22 September 2013) was an Italian screenwriter, known as the "script doctor". He wrote for some 65 films between 1954 and 2000.
Biography
Vincenzoni was born in Treviso, Veneto. He is probably best know ...
. It was shot at the
Cinecittà Studios
Cinecittà Studios (; Italian for Cinema City Studios), is a large film studio in Rome, Italy. With an area of 400,000 square metres (99 acres), it is the largest film studio in Europe, and is considered the hub of Italian cinema. The studios wer ...
in Rome.
Plot
During the period prior to the unification of Alba and Rome, the legendary Roman hero Horatius leads his troops against the forces of Alba in the region of Tullus Hostilius. He is wounded and taken prisoner but escapes and hides in the hills.
The king of Rome, believing Horatio to have been a coward, announces the engagement of his daughter Marcia to Horatio's brother Marcus, whom he names his heir.
Both Alba and Rome are anxious to find a peace. After consulting an oracle, the two kings decide that three brothers from each side should compete in a fight to the death, the winning side to dominate in the unification of the two kingdoms.
Horatio comes back to Rome, but finding his name dishonored and Marcia married, he returns to the hills.
On the day of the contest, however, he comes to fight alongside his two brothers. Both are killed. Horatio continues the fight alone and kills the three Alban brothers, including Curiazio, who was the lover of Horatio's sister, Horatia. She stabs herself to death. Horatio is now free to marry Marcia.
Cast
*
Alan Ladd
Alan Walbridge Ladd (September 3, 1913 – January 29, 1964) was an American actor and film producer. Ladd found success in film in the 1940s and early 1950s, particularly in films noir and Westerns. He was often paired with Veronica Lake ...
as
Horatius
*
Franca Bettoia
Franca Bettoia (or Bettoja; born 14 May 1936) is an Italian actress.
Life and career
Born in Rome, she made her first film appearance in ''Un palco all'opera ''(1955, by Siro Marcellini). The following year she appeared in ''Los amantes del de ...
as Marcia
*
Franco Fabrizi
Franco Fabrizi (; 15 February 1916 – 18 October 1995) was an Italian actor.
Life and career
Son of a barber and a cinema cashier, Franco Fabrizi started his career as a model and an actor in fotoromanzi. Fabrizi also starred on several rev ...
as Curiatius
*
Robert Keith as
Tullus Hostilius
Tullus Hostilius (r. 672–640 BC) was the legendary third king of Rome. He succeeded Numa Pompilius and was succeeded by Ancus Marcius. Unlike his predecessor, Tullus was known as a warlike king who according to the Roman Historian Livy, believ ...
*Jacqueline Derval as
Horatia
*
Luciano Marin
Luciano Marin (9 December 1931 – 12 November 2019) was an Italian actor. He appeared in more than twenty films since 1957.
Filmography
References
External links
*
1931 births
2019 deaths
Italian male film actors
{{Italy-f ...
as Eli
*
Andrea Aureli
Andrea Aureli (5 March 1923 – 5 November 2007) was an Italian actor.
Life and career
Born in Terni, Aureli graduated from the Liceo classico in his hometown, then he enrolled the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome, graduating in ...
as
Gaius Cluilius Gaius Cluilius was the king of Alba Longa during the reign of the Roman king Tullus Hostilius in the mid seventh century BC. Alba Longa was an ancient city of Latium in central Italy southeast of Rome.
He constructed the Cluilian trench, sometimes ...
*
Mino Doro
Mino Doro (6 May 1903 – 13 April 1992) was an Italian actor who appeared in more than a hundred films between 1932 and 1970. Doro generally played supporting and character roles. He appeared as a blackshirt in the 1934 Fascist propaganda fi ...
as Caius
*Osvaldo Ruggieri as Warrior of Alba
*
Jacques Sernas
Jokūbas Bernardas Šernas (30 July 1925 – 3 July 2015), commonly known as Jacques Sernas and sometimes credited as Jack Sernas, was a Lithuanian-born French actor with an international film career.
Biography
He was born in Kaunas, Lithuania, ...
as Marcus
Production
Tiberia Films had to cooperate with
Lux Film
Lux Film was an Italian film distribution (and later production) company founded by Riccardo Gualino in 1934.
Gualino was an anti-fascist businessman who had clashed with the regime of Mussolini in 1931 and had been forced into internal exile on ...
in order to finance the venture. Lux were making a number of movies aimed at the international market around this time, others including ''
The Tartars
''The Tartars''/''I Tartari'' is a 1961 Italian-Yugoslavian epic historical Technicolor film directed by Richard Thorpe and starring Victor Mature and Orson Welles. It is one of the sword-and-sandal genre films made in Italy in the 1950s and e ...
'', ''
The Thief of Bagdad'', and ''
The Wonders of Aladdin
''The Wonders of Aladdin'' (Italian: ''Le meraviglie di Aladino'') is a 1961 Italian-French-American comedy fantasy film directed by Henry Levin (with second unit direction by Mario Bava—uncredited in U.S. prints but credited as sole director i ...
''.
The film was originally called ''Horatio'' and was also known as ''Ojario'' and ''The Gladiator of Rome''. Shooting took place in Yugoslavia and Rome.
Ladd walked off the set after 11 weeks of filming because he had not been paid. When his salary was guaranteed he resumed filming. "My advice to any American actor making a film abroad is to develop his own foreign policy beforehand", said Ladd. "My own, for the future, will be 'Speak softly, but carry an iron contract'."
Bibliography
*
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
* ...
References
External links
*
*
Complete copy of filmat
Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...
* at Vernon Johns
*
{{Luciano Vincenzoni
1961 films
Films set in ancient Rome
Films based on classical mythology
Films set in Italy
Peplum films
Films directed by Ferdinando Baldi
Films directed by Terence Young
1960s Italian-language films
English-language Italian films
Films set in the 7th century BC
Lux Film films
Italian historical films
1960s historical films
Films scored by Angelo Francesco Lavagnino
Sword and sandal films
Films shot at Cinecittà Studios
Films with screenplays by Luciano Vincenzoni
1960s Italian films