![]() ![]() (If my ears did not deceive me, I think I recognised Joss Ackland's disembodied voice in there somewhere as well.) (Actually, no: the release was November 1979.) What a strange frisson it was to realise that General Macro, played by the Italian actor Guido Mannari, had been dubbed by the unmistakable voice of Patrick Allen. Watching the film I can well imagine its soundtrack booming gauntly and emptily in a big old London West End cinema, perhaps with uncollected winter-of-discontent rubbish still piled up outside. It certainly has archive value as a record of something fantastically terrible, a so-bad-it's-bad nightmare which could only have come from that era of stately art-porn. This new release comes in a four-disc "Imperial Edition", the word intended to connote classy retail, as in the Imperial Leather soap of the period. It was produced and effectively directed by Penthouse supremo Bob Guccione and starred Malcolm McDowell as the hateful sensualist himself, the depraved Emperor signalling the forthcoming demise of Rome by romping amidst the orgiastic throng. This was the 1979 hardcore pornstravaganza, set in ancient Rome, very controversial in its day, but soon discovered to be outrageously crude and dumb, certainly compared to the BBC's I, Claudius TV series, featuring John Hurt as Caligula and Derek Jacobi as Claudius. The BBFC has for the first time cleared the DVD release, with an 18 certificate, of the complete and uncut version of Caligula. ![]()
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