The Sign of the Cross
I still remember the first time I saw THE TEN COMMANDMENTS (1956). Youngsters may not realise this, but it was not uncommon for big hit films to get re-releases in subsequent years, a habit now largely abandoned by film distributors. I couldn’t place the year exactly, but it was in the 1968-70 period. It’s quite a striking film on the big screen, and for me the most memorable moment is the first Passover, a feast that marks not only the Flight from Egypt but also the death of Egypt’s first-born. As that creepy fog stretched down from the sky, I learnt that Cecil B. DeMille definitely had a way with images. (The Golden Calf at the foot of Sinai is another great sequence, but I’m not so keen on the Parting of the Red Sea.)
We see this talent deployed repeatedly in black-and-white in THE SIGN OF THE CROSS, a curious film that pretends to be about one thing but is really about another. The film opens with the Great Fire of Rome in AD 64, during which we see Nero (Charles Laughton) ‘fiddling’. Black-and-white photography somewhat subdues the impact of the fire but, given the limitations, DeMille’s conflagration is quite impressive. So is Laughton, who plays Nero more like the adolescent he was when he became Princeps in AD 54 where Ustinov’s Nero in QUO VADIS get his age about right for 64. Despite this impressive start, the real visual treats come later, although the asses’ milk bath of Poppæa (the hopelessly miscast Claudette Colbert) is another early stunner.
In between these two set-pieces we get an extended display of Hollywood’s homogenising effects on the past or on foreign places, in this case both. The Rome of THE SIGN OF THE CROSS is a kind of Anytown USA in fancy dress, and with dialogue straight off the Broadway stage, and emphasised by Colbert’s Manhattan-cocktail party manner. Poppæa, Tigellinus (Ian Keith) and Marcus ‘Superbus’ (Frederic March) could be right out of high school with their envies and jealousies towards one another playing out in ‘ancient’ Rome. The Christianity of the likes of Mercia (Elissa Landi) and her associates is a kind of non-denominational, non-political Protestantism that emphasises Eternal Salvation of the Fourth Gospel rather than – despite quoting it in extremis – the Sermon on the Mount’s practical welfarism. For a long time this apolitical quietism – except where communism was concerned – was American Christianity in a nutshell. It only changed with the threat of the Equal Rights Amendment.
Another aspect to this form of faith, and one that perhaps needs a stern revivalist preacher to take to the airwaves and remind the country of it in this troubled twenty-first century decade, is a stress on a virtuous life. And this is where DeMille achieves his thematic success in this film. It’s easy to emphasise how the sexual transgressions that DeMille sets before us, most notably the suggestively lesbian dance of Ancaria (Joyzelle Joyner), are him exploiting the sensational possibilities presented by a pagan society. Yet what is truly shocking is the way he famously depicts the crowd’s responses to the show in the Roman arena (resembling the as-yet unbuilt Colosseum, complete with awning). What condemns these Romans is their enjoyment in the slaughter of their fellow human-beings, whether gladiators who at least have a chance at emerging still alive, or the executions of the Christians by various animals that include elephants, crocodiles, tigers, lions and a solitary great ape. (The same woman reappears in a later shot of lions, so we retain an uncomfortable uncertainty about what the ape actually gets up to.) One watches these people reacting to such unimaginable horrors asking oneself whether the dull life of a virtuous Christian watching a few blokes get CTE on the American football field isn’t so bad after all.
DeMille deploys an unexpected opposition in this film, one that lends itself just as much to a highly misanthropic view of the film as a Christian one. Without the disciplining virtue offered by Christianity, the mass of people become worse than animals. They kill for entertainment while simultaneously being disgusted by what they see. (It is, one might say, a fine argument against public execution, death as entertainment.) While we can point to DeMille’s cynical deployment of titillation to pull in the audience, his real message isn’t about the debauched sexual lives of Rome’s elite. He targets the pagans for sustaining Byron’s vision of the Roman holiday.
In contrast to CLEOPATRA, a post-Code film that suffered from many of the same problems of dialogue and characterisation we find here, THE SIGN OF THE CROSS at least makes an admirable effort to capture the fabric of Ancient Rome, showing us with reasonable accuracy for its time a bakery, gladiatorial dress and some of the hairstyles. It’s a genuine shame that DeMille couldn’t bring himself to make his Ancient Romans less like Modern Americans. Also, for all my lack of sympathy with it, the Christianity here seems more spirited than the similar flavour presented in QUO VADIS, a film offering the same basic story, but arranged in a different order. For what it’s worth, I think I’m more likely to return to this one, than either of the other films I have mentioned here. YMMV.
© 2026 Paul Brewer
We see this talent deployed repeatedly in black-and-white in THE SIGN OF THE CROSS, a curious film that pretends to be about one thing but is really about another. The film opens with the Great Fire of Rome in AD 64, during which we see Nero (Charles Laughton) ‘fiddling’. Black-and-white photography somewhat subdues the impact of the fire but, given the limitations, DeMille’s conflagration is quite impressive. So is Laughton, who plays Nero more like the adolescent he was when he became Princeps in AD 54 where Ustinov’s Nero in QUO VADIS get his age about right for 64. Despite this impressive start, the real visual treats come later, although the asses’ milk bath of Poppæa (the hopelessly miscast Claudette Colbert) is another early stunner.
In between these two set-pieces we get an extended display of Hollywood’s homogenising effects on the past or on foreign places, in this case both. The Rome of THE SIGN OF THE CROSS is a kind of Anytown USA in fancy dress, and with dialogue straight off the Broadway stage, and emphasised by Colbert’s Manhattan-cocktail party manner. Poppæa, Tigellinus (Ian Keith) and Marcus ‘Superbus’ (Frederic March) could be right out of high school with their envies and jealousies towards one another playing out in ‘ancient’ Rome. The Christianity of the likes of Mercia (Elissa Landi) and her associates is a kind of non-denominational, non-political Protestantism that emphasises Eternal Salvation of the Fourth Gospel rather than – despite quoting it in extremis – the Sermon on the Mount’s practical welfarism. For a long time this apolitical quietism – except where communism was concerned – was American Christianity in a nutshell. It only changed with the threat of the Equal Rights Amendment.
Another aspect to this form of faith, and one that perhaps needs a stern revivalist preacher to take to the airwaves and remind the country of it in this troubled twenty-first century decade, is a stress on a virtuous life. And this is where DeMille achieves his thematic success in this film. It’s easy to emphasise how the sexual transgressions that DeMille sets before us, most notably the suggestively lesbian dance of Ancaria (Joyzelle Joyner), are him exploiting the sensational possibilities presented by a pagan society. Yet what is truly shocking is the way he famously depicts the crowd’s responses to the show in the Roman arena (resembling the as-yet unbuilt Colosseum, complete with awning). What condemns these Romans is their enjoyment in the slaughter of their fellow human-beings, whether gladiators who at least have a chance at emerging still alive, or the executions of the Christians by various animals that include elephants, crocodiles, tigers, lions and a solitary great ape. (The same woman reappears in a later shot of lions, so we retain an uncomfortable uncertainty about what the ape actually gets up to.) One watches these people reacting to such unimaginable horrors asking oneself whether the dull life of a virtuous Christian watching a few blokes get CTE on the American football field isn’t so bad after all.
DeMille deploys an unexpected opposition in this film, one that lends itself just as much to a highly misanthropic view of the film as a Christian one. Without the disciplining virtue offered by Christianity, the mass of people become worse than animals. They kill for entertainment while simultaneously being disgusted by what they see. (It is, one might say, a fine argument against public execution, death as entertainment.) While we can point to DeMille’s cynical deployment of titillation to pull in the audience, his real message isn’t about the debauched sexual lives of Rome’s elite. He targets the pagans for sustaining Byron’s vision of the Roman holiday.
In contrast to CLEOPATRA, a post-Code film that suffered from many of the same problems of dialogue and characterisation we find here, THE SIGN OF THE CROSS at least makes an admirable effort to capture the fabric of Ancient Rome, showing us with reasonable accuracy for its time a bakery, gladiatorial dress and some of the hairstyles. It’s a genuine shame that DeMille couldn’t bring himself to make his Ancient Romans less like Modern Americans. Also, for all my lack of sympathy with it, the Christianity here seems more spirited than the similar flavour presented in QUO VADIS, a film offering the same basic story, but arranged in a different order. For what it’s worth, I think I’m more likely to return to this one, than either of the other films I have mentioned here. YMMV.
© 2026 Paul Brewer
Mini Review: Makes an admirable effort to capture the fabric of Ancient Rome, but DeMille's failure to make his Ancient Romans less like Modern Americans fatally compromises a film that has superb imagery and a fine performance by Laughton as Nero.