Restoration of Quo Vadis (1924) was made possible by the support of numerous European film archives. In addition to the project leader, Nederlands Filmmuseum, important contributions were made by Fondazione Cineteca Italiana in Milan, Fondazione S.N.C.- Cineteca Nazionale in Rome, the Museo Nazionale del Cinema in Turin, and the National Film & Television Archive in London.

The film was shot in two different versions, one destined for the Italian market, and one for the international market. Though incomplete, both original negatives still exist. The version destined for the international market, deposited at the Fondazione Cineteca Italiana, was used as the base for this restoration. However, several fragments come from a positive print from that era which is now held at the Nederlands Filmmuseum. The tinting is faithful to the Dutch print, while the intertitles were reconstructed using materials from Turin and London. Of the original length of 3300 meters (according to period sources), 2820 meters were reconstructed. Mindful of the incredible success enjoyed by the first film version, directed by Enrico Guazzoni in 1912, of Sienkievic’s popular novel, the Italian Cinematographic Union (UCI) employed substantial capital resources in the new version. The purpose was to make a last desperate attempt at winning back the market, which was by then dominated by foreign products, with American films in the lead. The general organization was entrusted to Fritz Curioni, and the production to Arturo Ambrosio. The cast included prestigious names, ranging from the famous German actor Emil Jannings, in the part of Nero, to English actress Lilian Hall-Davis (Lygia), and from the voluptuous Rina De Liguoro and Elena Sangro (Eunice and Poppea) to the refined André Habay as Petronius, in addition to a brawny Bruto Castellani, called to repeat the role of Ursus which he also played in the first version. Cameramen Vitrotti and Donelli were joined by German Curt Courant; sets were work of sculptor Brasini, and finally, Georg Jacoby was called in to direct the film, paired with – almost recalling Cabiria – D’Annunzio, but instead of the poet, this time it was his son Gabriellino. Indeed, the film was quite grandiose. Money was spent, and it showed. The Circus Maximus was reconstructed at Madonna del Riposo, while the scenes of Rome burning were shot at Villa Borghese, where there were a number of constructions in ancient Roman style that had been built for an exhibition. As Fritz Curioni tells in his memoires, Quo Vadis? was made feverishly, with an enormous amount of desire put in, and no expense spared. Scene after scene was hurriedly constructed and torn down, in the small theaters of Cines and the Palatine, illuminated by the good will of old lamps and sometimes some military photoelectric lights. It was truly a grandiose work, and if it didn’t yield quite what the producers had expected, it was without a doubt due to the fact that audiences were tired of that sort of film. In reality, however, in addition to a disenchantment with that genre and with Italian films in general, upon release of the film, a series of court sentences for the copy rights nearly bankrupted the UCI (which lost to all the various claimants), which must be added to a substantial sum paid to pull the first re-edited version at the same time as the release of the new one, a conviction of the animal tamer Schneider (one of his circus lions had bitten and killed an extra), and, last but not least, impositions by the censors to cut here, cut there, «delete, soften», and scissor away.


Vittorio Martinelli