I, Claudius ''I, Claudius'' is a historical novel by English writer Robert Graves, published in 1934. Written in the form of an autobiography of the Roman Emperor Claudius, it tells the history of the Julio-Claudian dynasty and the early years of the Ro ...

Claudius the God ''I, Claudius'' is a historical novel by English writer Robert Graves, published in 1934. Written in the form of an autobiography of the Roman Emperor Claudius, it tells the history of the Julio-Claudian dynasty and the early years of the Rom ...

Alexander Korda Sir Alexander Korda (; born Sándor László Kellner; hu, Korda Sándor; 16 September 1893 – 23 January 1956)Josef von Sternberg, with Charles Laughton in the

title role The title character in a narrative work is one who is named or referred to in the title of the work. In a performed work such as a play or film, the performer who plays the title character is said to have the title role of the piece. The title of ...

. The production was dogged by adverse circumstances, culminating in a car accident involving co-star

Merle Oberon Merle Oberon (born Estelle Merle O'Brien Thompson; 19 February 191123 November 1979) was a British actress who began her film career in British films as Anne Boleyn in ''The Private Life of Henry VIII'' (1933). After her success in ''The Scarle ...

that caused filming to be ended before completion. Footage from the production was incorporated into a 1965 documentary on the making of the film ''The Epic That Never Was''.

Production

''I, Claudius'' was a production of

Alexander Korda Sir Alexander Korda (; born Sándor László Kellner; hu, Korda Sándor; 16 September 1893 – 23 January 1956)Josef von Sternberg and starring Charles Laughton (as Claudius),

Emlyn Williams George Emlyn Williams, CBE (26 November 1905 – 25 September 1987) was a Welsh writer, dramatist and actor. Early life Williams was born into a Welsh-speaking, working class family at 1 Jones Terrace, Pen-y-ffordd, Ffynnongroyw, Flints ...

(as Caligula),

Flora Robson Dame Flora McKenzie Robson (28 March 19027 July 1984) was an English actress and star of the theatrical stage and cinema, particularly renowned for her performances in plays demanding dramatic and emotional intensity. Her range extended from q ...

(as Livia), and

Merle Oberon Merle Oberon (born Estelle Merle O'Brien Thompson; 19 February 191123 November 1979) was a British actress who began her film career in British films as Anne Boleyn in ''The Private Life of Henry VIII'' (1933). After her success in ''The Scarle ...

(as

Messalina Valeria Messalina (; ) was the third wife of Roman emperor Claudius. She was a paternal cousin of Emperor Nero, a second cousin of Emperor Caligula, and a great-grandniece of Emperor Augustus. A powerful and influential woman with a reputatio ...

). Also in the cast were

Allan Aynesworth Edward Henry Abbot-Anderson (14 April 1864, Sandhurst, Berkshire – 22 August 1959, Camberley, Surrey), known professionally as Allan Aynesworth, was an English actor and producer. His career spanned more than six decades, from 1887 to 1949 ...

(as Senator Asiaticus) and John Clements (as Valens). Other speaking parts included Claudius's servant Narcissus, Claudius' doctor

Xenophon Xenophon of Athens (; grc, Ξενοφῶν ; – probably 355 or 354 BC) was a Greek military leader, philosopher, and historian, born in Athens. At the age of 30, Xenophon was elected commander of one of the biggest Greek mercenary armies o ...

, Senator Sentius, and soldiers Cassius and Lupus. Laughton based his interpretation of Claudius on

King Edward VIII Edward VIII (Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David; 23 June 1894 – 28 May 1972), later known as the Duke of Windsor, was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Empire and Emperor of India from 20 January 19 ...

and his abdication speech. The production was dogged by "ill circumstances". Oberon was injured in a car accident 16 March 1937, suffering facial cuts and a slight concussion. On 26 March 1937, it was announced that the film was abandoned."Star's injuries halt production of film."
''

The Tuscaloosa News The '' Tuscaloosa News '' is a daily newspaper serving Tuscaloosa, Alabama, United States, and the surrounding area in west central Alabama. In 2012, Halifax Media Group acquired the ''Tuscaloosa News''. Prior to that, the paper's owner was T ...

'' (

Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. ne ...

), 26 March 1937. Retrieved: 5 January 2016. Suspicions that the accident was used as a pretext for cancelling the troubled production surfaced within days, when columnist

Sheilah Graham Sheilah Graham (born Lily Shiel; 15 September 1904 – 17 November 1988) was a British-born, nationally syndicated American gossip columnist during Hollywood's "Golden Age". In her youth, she had been a showgirl and a freelance writer for F ...

reported that quarrels between Korda and Laughton over Laughton's interpretation of Claudius was "the real reason work on the picture has been halted, not the serious injuries supposedly suffered by the leading lady, Merle Oberon, in a London auto crash." London Films received an £80,000 (£ today) settlement from

Prudential Insurance Prudential Financial, Inc. is an American Fortune Global 500 and Fortune 500 company whose subsidiaries provide insurance, retirement planning, investment management, and other products and services to both retail and institutional customers ...

that reduced the production's losses to date. A scheme to make use of the ''I, Claudius'' footage by incorporating it into ''The Denham Studio Mystery'', a proposed sequel to ''

The Arsenal Stadium Mystery ''The Arsenal Stadium Mystery'' is a 1939 British mystery film and one of the first feature films wherein football is a central element in the plot. The film was directed by Thorold Dickinson, and shot at Denham Film Studios and on location ...

'' (1939), fell through.

Cast

* Charles Laughton as Claudius *

Merle Oberon Merle Oberon (born Estelle Merle O'Brien Thompson; 19 February 191123 November 1979) was a British actress who began her film career in British films as Anne Boleyn in ''The Private Life of Henry VIII'' (1933). After her success in ''The Scarle ...

as

Messalina Valeria Messalina (; ) was the third wife of Roman emperor Claudius. She was a paternal cousin of Emperor Nero, a second cousin of Emperor Caligula, and a great-grandniece of Emperor Augustus. A powerful and influential woman with a reputatio ...

*

Flora Robson Dame Flora McKenzie Robson (28 March 19027 July 1984) was an English actress and star of the theatrical stage and cinema, particularly renowned for her performances in plays demanding dramatic and emotional intensity. Her range extended from q ...

as Livia *

Emlyn Williams George Emlyn Williams, CBE (26 November 1905 – 25 September 1987) was a Welsh writer, dramatist and actor. Early life Williams was born into a Welsh-speaking, working class family at 1 Jones Terrace, Pen-y-ffordd, Ffynnongroyw, Flints ...

as Caligula *

Robert Newton Robert Guy Newton (1 June 1905 – 25 March 1956) was an English actor. Along with Errol Flynn, Newton was one of the more popular actors among the male juvenile audience of the 1940s and early 1950s, especially with British boys. Known for h ...

as Cassius *

Allan Aynesworth Edward Henry Abbot-Anderson (14 April 1864, Sandhurst, Berkshire – 22 August 1959, Camberley, Surrey), known professionally as Allan Aynesworth, was an English actor and producer. His career spanned more than six decades, from 1887 to 1949 ...

as Asiaticus, Senator * John Clements as Valens *

Leonora Corbett Leonora Corbett (28 June 1908 – 29 July 1960) was an English actress, noted for her charm and elegance in stage roles, and for a number of films made in the 1930s. Life and career Corbett was born in London, the daughter of Richard Ashwin Cor ...

as

Caesonia Milonia Caesonia (died AD 41) was Roman empress as the fourth and last wife of the emperor Caligula from their marriage in AD 39 until they were both assassinated in 41. Life Early life The daughter of Vistilia, Milonia was born toward the begi ...

*

Roy Emerton Roy Emerton (9 October 1892 – 30 November 1944) was a British film actor. Earlier in his life, he was a sailor, stoker, docker, railway worker, and miner and served in the First World War. He played in a great number of popular London stage p ...

as

Augustus Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian, was the first Roman emperor; he reigned from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. He is known for being the founder of the Roman Pr ...

* Gina Evans as Vestal Virgin * Frank Forbes-Robertson as Lupus, captain of the guard * Basil Gill as

Xenophon Xenophon of Athens (; grc, Ξενοφῶν ; – probably 355 or 354 BC) was a Greek military leader, philosopher, and historian, born in Athens. At the age of 30, Xenophon was elected commander of one of the biggest Greek mercenary armies o ...

, Claudius' doctor * Morland Graham as Halotus, master of Livia's household *

Everley Gregg Everley Gregg (26 October 1903, in Bishopstoke, Hampshire – 9 June 1959, in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire) was an English actress. Early in her career, she became associated especially with plays of Noël Coward. She began making films in the ...

as Domitia, Messalina's mother *

Lyn Harding David Llewellyn Harding (12 October 1867 – 26 December 1952), known professionally as Lyn Harding, was a Welsh actor who spent 40 years on the stage before entering British made silent films, talkies and radio. He had an imposing and menac ...

as

Vespasian Vespasian (; la, Vespasianus ; 17 November AD 9 – 23/24 June 79) was a Roman emperor who reigned from AD 69 to 79. The fourth and last emperor who reigned in the Year of the Four Emperors, he founded the Flavian dynasty that ruled the Empi ...

*

Allan Jeayes Allan John Jeayes (19 January 1885 – 20 September 1963) was an English stage and film actor. Jeayes was born in Barnet, Hertfordshire, the son of Isaac Herbert Jeayes, archivist and Assistant Keeper of Manuscripts at the British Museum. ...

as Musa, Livia's physician

''The Epic That Never Was''

The making of ''I, Claudius'' is the subject of the 1965

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...

...

-TV documentary, ''The Epic That Never Was''. Hosted by Dirk Bogarde, the film uses unedited rushes from the film, contemporary glimpses of the abandoned

Denham Film Studios Denham Film Studios was a British film production studio operating from 1936 to 1952, founded by Alexander Korda. Notable films made at Denham include ''Brief Encounter'' and David Lean's ''Great Expectations''. From the 1950s to the 1970s th ...

, and modern interviews with Robert Graves, Merle Oberon, Flora Robson, Josef von Sternberg, Emlyn Williams and costume designer John Armstrong. The 75-minute film incorporates two extended scenes featuring Laughton; briefer scenes featuring Emlyn Williams, Robert Newton, Flora Robson and Merle Oberon; crowd scenes presenting sixty

Vestal Virgin In ancient Rome, the Vestal Virgins or Vestals ( la, Vestālēs, singular ) were priestesses of Vesta, virgin goddess of Rome's sacred hearth and its flame. The Vestals were unlike any other public priesthood. They were chosen before puberty ...

s, a cinematic exaggeration of the traditional six; and views of

Vincent Korda Vincent Korda (22 June 1897 – 4 January 1979) was a Hungarian-born art director, later settling in Britain. Born in Túrkeve in what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire, he was the younger brother of Alexander and Zoltan Korda. He was n ...

's opulent sets.Greenspun, Roger
"''I, Claudius'' Recalled."
''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'', 20 September 1969. Retrieved: 5 January 2016. "Whether this would have been one of von Sternberg's great movies, I simply don't know," wrote

Roger Greenspun Roger Greenspun (December 16, 1929 – June 18, 2017) was an American journalist and film critic, best known for his work with ''The New York Times'' in which he reviewed near 400 films, particularly in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and for '' ...

of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' after the documentary screened as part of the 1969

New York Film Festival The New York Film Festival (NYFF) is a film festival held every fall in New York City, presented by Film at Lincoln Center (FLC). Founded in 1963 by Richard Roud and Amos Vogel with the support of Lincoln Center president William Schuman, i ...

.

Something in the controlled modeling of light over the faces of Merle Oberon and Emlyn Williams suggests that this might have been a superb film and that its loss is real and very sad. … By an admirable trick of fate the 1937 von Sternberg footage has ascended into timeless light, while the style of the surrounding 1965 documentary has dated like crazy. If you have to lose your best project, maybe this is the way to do it.

"A truly wrenching what-if was the loss of the 1937 version of ''I, Claudius'', with Charles Laughton as the limping, stuttering, intensely admirable soon-to-be-Roman-emperor Claudius," wrote Warren Clements of ''

The Globe and Mail ''The Globe and Mail'' is a Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of approximately 2 million in 2015, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on weekdays and Saturdays, although it ...

''. He called the original rushes seen in the BBC documentary "achingly wonderful". In '' Senses of Cinema'', film scholar Robert Keser wrote that,

the surviving sequences that are included do suggest that an uncommonly ambitious work of both luminous beauty and ruthless psychology was underway. Dirk Bogarde concludes his narration by wondering who else would make another attempt at filming ''I, Claudius'', raising the final irony that scarcely a decade later, in 1976, the BBC itself would produce its memorably intense and flawlessly played television version.Kesar, Robert
"The epic that never was."
'' Senses of Cinema'', April 2005. Retrieved: 5 January 2016.

''The Epic That Never Was'' is included as a bonus feature in the Acorn DVD box set of the BBC series ''

I, Claudius ''I, Claudius'' is a historical novel by English writer Robert Graves, published in 1934. Written in the form of an autobiography of the Roman Emperor Claudius, it tells the history of the Julio-Claudian dynasty and the early years of the Ro ...

'', and includes more than 20 minutes of original footage from the uncompleted 1937 film.McQuain, Christopher
"I, Claudius.'
''

DVD Talk DVD Talk is a home video news and review website launched in 1999 by Geoffrey Kleinman. History Kleinman founded the site in January 1999 in Beaverton, Oregon. Besides news and reviews, it features information on hidden DVD features known as ...

'', 27 March 2012. Retrieved: 5 January 2016.

Notes

References

Citations

Bibliography

* Baxter, John. "14. The Fall of Claudius", ''The Cinema of Josef von Sternberg''. London: Tantivy Press, 1971. pp. 136–149. . * Solomon, Jon. ''The Ancient World in the Cinema: Revised and Expanded Edition''. New Haven, Connecticut:

Yale University Press Yale University Press is the university press of Yale University. It was founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day, and became an official department of Yale University in 1961, but it remains financially and operationally autonomous. , Yale Universi ...

, 2001, pp. 78–79. . * Tucker, Steve.
Cursed but a Triumph!
. ''

South Wales Echo The ''South Wales Echo'' is a daily tabloid newspaper published in Cardiff, Wales and distributed throughout the surrounding area. It has a circulation of 7,573. Background The newspaper was founded in 1884 and was based in Thomson House, ...

,'' 16 December 2005. * von Sternberg, Josef. ''Fun in a Chinese Laundry: An Autobiography''. New York: Macmillan, 1965, pp. 172–189. .

External links

Outta Gas – Film Threat's Top 10 Unfinished Films of All Time; Phil Hall
Film Threat
"DiCaprio Mooted for ''I, Claudius'' Movie", ''The Guardian'' (6 September 2007)
* {{I, Claudius I, Claudius 1930s unfinished films 1937 drama films 1930s historical films British drama films British historical films Films directed by Josef von Sternberg Films set in ancient Rome Films set in the Roman Empire Films set in the 1st century Films based on British novels Biographical films about Roman emperors Films produced by Alexander Korda Cultural depictions of Claudius Cultural depictions of Messalina Depictions of Augustus on film Depictions of Caligula on film 1930s British films