After Demetrius tries to stop Roman soldiers from finding the robe , he is sentenced to fight in the arena as a gladiator as punishment. Victor Mature carries off the leading role quite well, although much of his performance relies upon the actor's physical prowess instead of his acting abilities. Of course, Susan Hayward's beauty makes her an ideal temptress, but it is the intelligence of her performance that makes her character s manipulations of Caligula plausible. For the most part, the image on the DVD is reasonably crisp and offers fairly good detail.
Some shots appear a little soft, but it's never really bothersome.
Problems inherent with the early CinemaScope process, such as slight image distortion are occasionally noticeable, but there is nothing that can be done about the imperfections in the original lenses. Color reproduction is a bit variable, with occasional fading cropping up. Crimson reds and deep purples that appear in the movie still look very impressive, more than 45 years after this film was made. The film element used for the transfer does display some minor blemishes, but they are never distracting. Film grain is present throughout the presentation, but it is usually mild.