Occasionally, film critics write scathing reviews of a movie, only to praise a sequence imbedded in the film that is so unique it becomes unforgettable. Fox Film Corporation's August 1935's "Dante's Inferno," skewered by critics, drew praise by some pointing to a memorable ten-minute sequence depicting the underworld's tortuous eternity of condemned souls. The motion picture was Fox Film's last production before the corporation merged with Twentieth Century Pictures.
Modern day film reviewer Kristen Lope reflects the opinion of most critics previewing "Dante's Inferno." "The only saving grace is when the movie actually embraces the source material. Dante's original text isn't a bedtime story, but it's literally the device utilized to segue into an over ten-minute segment depicting the various levels of Hell. This is where the movie soars with terrifying set design, and sneaky post-Code nudity from various lost souls condemned. Despite its negative message, that single scene contains more intensity than the narrative." Critic Jamie Rich concurred, describing the "underworld is one of the more impressive versions of Hell ever created on a Hollywood soundstage." The sequence had 3,000 extras and employed nearly 5,000 technicians, laborers, carpenters, artists and others to make the Hades scene believable. Over 300,000 feet of film was taken of the various people enacting how the underworld was envisioned by Dante. Just 8,000 feet was used in the final edit.
"Dante's Inferno" was directed by Harry Lachman, whose talents as a post impressionist painter and a book illustrator gave his film a highly-stylized visual look unique in film. Philip Klein's script uses Dante Alighieri's 'Divine Comedy's" first cantica, 'Inferno,' to introduce a carnival barker, Jim Carter (Spencer Tracy), assisting his wife's uncle, Pop McWade (Henry Walthall), to help gin up business for his failing amusement show. The unscrupulous Carter has no conscious fooling customers into thinking his is the greatest show on earth while encasing the exhibition's frightful settings with inferior construction. When the building collapses, sending Pop to the hospital, the uncle's reading of the 'Inferno' to Carter prompts the jaw-dropping underworld sequence. Carter decides to begin a new venture, a floating casino on an unsafe boat.
Spencer Tracy hated being in the movie, calling it "one of the worst pictures ever made anywhere, anytime." He was in a personal miserable state when making the film, drinking much of the time and failing to show up on the set for days. When he did come in, Tracy was an angry, ill-tempered actor who sometimes fell asleep during days of filming from the effects of his hangovers. One afternoon he was sleeping on a set that looked like an apartment. Studio staffers locked the stage door so he couldn't get out. It was reported Tracy was so mad when he found himself locked in he destroyed the set. Fox billed him for all the damage he caused during his rampage.
"Dante's Inferno" also was the first credited role of Rita Hayworth, named Rita Cansino at the time. She appears as a dance partner in the casino liner Carter operates. The 16-year-old's dancing is flawless, testimony of her upbringing where, she said, "From the time I was three and a half, as soon as I could stand on my own feet, I was given dance lessons. I didn't like it very much, but I didn't have the courage to tell my father, so I began taking the lessons. Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse, that was my girlhood." Her father Eduardo Cansino relocated from Brooklyn, New York, to Hollywood in 1927 to form a dance studio, and had clients such as James Cagney and Jean Harlow. At 12, she and her father formed the duo the Dancing Cansinos, and worked across the border in Tijuana, Mexico, nightclubs since she was lawfully too young to be employed in bars in the states. Rita dropped out of school after the ninth grade because of her busy work schedule.
Tracy later praised Hayworth's high status in Hollywood despite beginning her movie career in the worst film he ever made, remarking, "The fact that she survived in films after that screen debut is testimony that she deserves all the recognition she's getting now." The actor was glad leaving Fox for MGM soon after the movie was completed. Meanwhile Fox's name is now part of the Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation, getting its new extended title after "Dante's Inferno" rolled out of the studio's lot.
Modern day film reviewer Kristen Lope reflects the opinion of most critics previewing "Dante's Inferno." "The only saving grace is when the movie actually embraces the source material. Dante's original text isn't a bedtime story, but it's literally the device utilized to segue into an over ten-minute segment depicting the various levels of Hell. This is where the movie soars with terrifying set design, and sneaky post-Code nudity from various lost souls condemned. Despite its negative message, that single scene contains more intensity than the narrative." Critic Jamie Rich concurred, describing the "underworld is one of the more impressive versions of Hell ever created on a Hollywood soundstage." The sequence had 3,000 extras and employed nearly 5,000 technicians, laborers, carpenters, artists and others to make the Hades scene believable. Over 300,000 feet of film was taken of the various people enacting how the underworld was envisioned by Dante. Just 8,000 feet was used in the final edit.
"Dante's Inferno" was directed by Harry Lachman, whose talents as a post impressionist painter and a book illustrator gave his film a highly-stylized visual look unique in film. Philip Klein's script uses Dante Alighieri's 'Divine Comedy's" first cantica, 'Inferno,' to introduce a carnival barker, Jim Carter (Spencer Tracy), assisting his wife's uncle, Pop McWade (Henry Walthall), to help gin up business for his failing amusement show. The unscrupulous Carter has no conscious fooling customers into thinking his is the greatest show on earth while encasing the exhibition's frightful settings with inferior construction. When the building collapses, sending Pop to the hospital, the uncle's reading of the 'Inferno' to Carter prompts the jaw-dropping underworld sequence. Carter decides to begin a new venture, a floating casino on an unsafe boat.
Spencer Tracy hated being in the movie, calling it "one of the worst pictures ever made anywhere, anytime." He was in a personal miserable state when making the film, drinking much of the time and failing to show up on the set for days. When he did come in, Tracy was an angry, ill-tempered actor who sometimes fell asleep during days of filming from the effects of his hangovers. One afternoon he was sleeping on a set that looked like an apartment. Studio staffers locked the stage door so he couldn't get out. It was reported Tracy was so mad when he found himself locked in he destroyed the set. Fox billed him for all the damage he caused during his rampage.
"Dante's Inferno" also was the first credited role of Rita Hayworth, named Rita Cansino at the time. She appears as a dance partner in the casino liner Carter operates. The 16-year-old's dancing is flawless, testimony of her upbringing where, she said, "From the time I was three and a half, as soon as I could stand on my own feet, I was given dance lessons. I didn't like it very much, but I didn't have the courage to tell my father, so I began taking the lessons. Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse, that was my girlhood." Her father Eduardo Cansino relocated from Brooklyn, New York, to Hollywood in 1927 to form a dance studio, and had clients such as James Cagney and Jean Harlow. At 12, she and her father formed the duo the Dancing Cansinos, and worked across the border in Tijuana, Mexico, nightclubs since she was lawfully too young to be employed in bars in the states. Rita dropped out of school after the ninth grade because of her busy work schedule.
Tracy later praised Hayworth's high status in Hollywood despite beginning her movie career in the worst film he ever made, remarking, "The fact that she survived in films after that screen debut is testimony that she deserves all the recognition she's getting now." The actor was glad leaving Fox for MGM soon after the movie was completed. Meanwhile Fox's name is now part of the Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation, getting its new extended title after "Dante's Inferno" rolled out of the studio's lot.