The Last Days of Pompeii

Ernest B. Shoedsack – 1935 – USA

Extremely hokey period flick about the Roman city before its obliteration by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius.  The acting and staging are laughably bad at times; a sad state of affairs considering Shoedsack’s fresh triumph with King Kong (1933).  Not even Basil Rathbone as Pontius Pilate can make the film interesting, as wooden lug Preston Foster hams it up from beginning to end as a simple blacksmith who gets drawn into being a gladiator and gets corrupted, much to the consternation, years later, of his pious Christian son.  The only thing of interest is the climactic scenes of mass destruction, but even these effects pale in comparison to animator Willis O’Brien’s still-impressive work in King Kong.  Curiously, the recent film Pompeii (2013) is equally cheesy.