"The Sign of the Cross" marked Cecil B. DeMille's first epic of the sound era. Produced in the pre-code year of 1932, it gave him license to include some brutal torture and death scenes as well as, some sexy parts too. And yes, this is the film in which Claudette Colbert takes a bath in asses' milk.
The story centers around the Roman persecution of the Christians in the time of Emperor Nero (Charles Laughton) in 64 A.D. The film opens with the famous burning of Rome while Nero plays his harp. Nero and his confederate Tigellinus (Ian Keith)conspire to place blame for the blaze upon the Christians whom Rome is trying to exterminate.
Marcus Superbus (Frederic March), the Prefect of Rome is close to Nero and the rival of Tigellinus. Poppaea (Colbert) is the scheming sexy wife of Nero whom it seems bends to her will. Poppaea has her eye on Marcus even though he doesn't return the desire.
One day while riding through the city Marcus comes upon the virginal Christian girl Mercia (Elissa Landi) and saves her from arrest. Tigellius learns of Marcus' interest in the girl and plots to expose him. Marcus comes to fall in love with the girl. Young Stephan a friend of Mercia, is arrested by Tigellinus' spies and is tortured into revealing the location of a planned Christian gathering.
Many of the Christians are slaughtered before Marcus can intercede. The survivors including Mercia are taken away to prison to await execution in the arena. Marcus rescues Mercia and takes her to his house. Mercia tries to convince Marcus to become a Christian but he refuses. The scheming Poppaea whose advances toward Marcus have been rejected, convinces Nero not to spare Mercia from the lions in spite of Marcus' protests.
The arena scenes are quite graphic for the time. The gladiator combats, the amazon's duels with the pygmies and finally the slaughter of the Christians are graphically depicted. There is some suggested nudity with one girl being left for a gorilla and another, celebrated fan dancer Sally Rand, being fed to the crocodiles. Also Colbert's bath scene contains teasing little glimpses of her assets.
If one has a feeling of deja vu while watching this film. the later epics "Quo Vadis" (1951) and "The Robe" (1953) have similar stories and endings. It's likely that Claudette Colbert's performance in this film resulted in DeMille casting her as Cleopatra in his film of that name in 1934.
The story centers around the Roman persecution of the Christians in the time of Emperor Nero (Charles Laughton) in 64 A.D. The film opens with the famous burning of Rome while Nero plays his harp. Nero and his confederate Tigellinus (Ian Keith)conspire to place blame for the blaze upon the Christians whom Rome is trying to exterminate.
Marcus Superbus (Frederic March), the Prefect of Rome is close to Nero and the rival of Tigellinus. Poppaea (Colbert) is the scheming sexy wife of Nero whom it seems bends to her will. Poppaea has her eye on Marcus even though he doesn't return the desire.
One day while riding through the city Marcus comes upon the virginal Christian girl Mercia (Elissa Landi) and saves her from arrest. Tigellius learns of Marcus' interest in the girl and plots to expose him. Marcus comes to fall in love with the girl. Young Stephan a friend of Mercia, is arrested by Tigellinus' spies and is tortured into revealing the location of a planned Christian gathering.
Many of the Christians are slaughtered before Marcus can intercede. The survivors including Mercia are taken away to prison to await execution in the arena. Marcus rescues Mercia and takes her to his house. Mercia tries to convince Marcus to become a Christian but he refuses. The scheming Poppaea whose advances toward Marcus have been rejected, convinces Nero not to spare Mercia from the lions in spite of Marcus' protests.
The arena scenes are quite graphic for the time. The gladiator combats, the amazon's duels with the pygmies and finally the slaughter of the Christians are graphically depicted. There is some suggested nudity with one girl being left for a gorilla and another, celebrated fan dancer Sally Rand, being fed to the crocodiles. Also Colbert's bath scene contains teasing little glimpses of her assets.
If one has a feeling of deja vu while watching this film. the later epics "Quo Vadis" (1951) and "The Robe" (1953) have similar stories and endings. It's likely that Claudette Colbert's performance in this film resulted in DeMille casting her as Cleopatra in his film of that name in 1934.