Helen Mirren Caligula bed scene (Image: FS )
It’s no surprise that a film featuring graphic sex, gruesome violence, sexual violence, a full-frontal birth scene and necrophilia caused a huge international furore.
Roman epic Caligula was released 45 years ago on August 14. It was the first ever production created by Penthouse Films International, the big screen wing of the Penthouse magazine empire.
The pet project of Penthouse founder Bob Guccione, who insisted on copious nudity from the start, it featured an original screenplay by Gore Vidal and starred respected thespians like Helen Mirren, Peter O’Toole, John Gielgud and, in the lead role, Malcolm McDowell.
This was the 1970’s, when the boundaries between arthouse and titillation blurred. Mirren herself later said: “I was doing nude scenes from the moment I first started doing movies. I never wanted to show much boobs, but I thought, ‘Does it really matter?’ It seemed to be nothing to get your knickers in a twist over.”
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Helen Mirren Caligula dance scene (Image: FS )
Helen Mirren and Malcolm McDowell in Caligula (Image: FS )
Backstage drama started early with director Tinto Brass only agreeing to sign on if he could rewrite Vidal’s screenplay. He changed te infamous emperor’s arc from a man corrupted by power to an innate monster spiralling to his doom. He also added in orgy scenes, decorative phalluses and copious nudity.
Mirren and McDowell participated in the scripted scenes requiring nudity and simulated sex. Mirren also features in a scene depicting her character, Caligula’s wife Caesonia, giving birth spread-eagled and suspended in front of the Imperial court. McDowell features in scenes where Caligula sexually abuses a male courtier and has sex with his sister Drusilla, both alive and after her death.
Mirren later said of the film: “Everyone was naked in that. It was like showing up for a nudist camp every day. You felt embarrassed if you had your clothes on in that movie.”
Principal filming was completed in December 1976. Unbeknown to the main cast and Brass, Guccione secretly went back and shot extra scenes featuring some of his Penthouse Pets performing graphic real-life sexual acts, particularly oral. These were then spliced into existing scenes.
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Vidal had already disavowed the movie and Brass would later do the same after discovering what had been done to his original footage.
A furious McDowell said: “It was absurd. There would be a shot of me smiling, looking at what was supposed to be my horse or something, then suddenly they’d cut to two lesbians making out. It was awful. We were all appalled by the final product.”
Mirren, however, has said: “I’ve never opened my mouth to denigrate Caligula. I was pretty young when I made that—not physically so much as experienced in film. And you know what? It was a great experience. It was like being sent down to Dante’s Inferno in many ways.”
It would take over two years for a completed but still edited cut of the film, which was first screened in Italy and confiscated by police four days after it debuted in Rome. Once word spread about the provocative content, footage was stopped on entry to the US.
Caligula: Malcolm McDowell stars in trailer for 1979 film
Federal officials decided the content was not obscene and Guccione relished repeated attempts to block release across the US in New York, Boston, Atlanta, Ohio and more, because he appreciated this generated incredible publicity.
The film was passed for release because the producers argued that the violence and sex were artistically integral to depicting the corruption and decay of Caligula’s court.
Restricted to adult’s-only audiences, the film eventually banked an impressive $23million worldwide ($127million today), however it was also expensive to make at $17.5million ($95million today). An uncut version was only finally approved in the UK in 2008, and in Australia in 2021.
A reconstructed 178-minute Ultimate Cut endorsed by McDowell premiered at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival with much of the sex removed, but numerous archived character scenes restored.
Guccione’s original 156-minute uncut version is not available to stream in the UK on Amazon, Apple, Sky, Now, Google, Netflix and other major platforms.
The censored version of Caligula is available on Amazon Prime HERE.
The uncensored Blu-ray of Caligula is available to buy HERE.
The uncensored DVD of Caligula is available to buy HERE