Product Description

Before Rome. Before Gladiator. The most controversial film of all time as you've never experienced it before! Combining lavish spectacle and top award-winning stars, this landmark production was shrouded in secrecy since its first day of filming. Now, this unprecedented special edition presents a bolder and more revealing Caligula than ever before, with a beautiful new high-definition transfer from recently uncovered negative elements and hours of never-before-seen bonus material! From the moment he ascends to the throne as Emperor, Caligula enforces a reign like no other as power and corruption transform him into a deranged beast whose deeds still live on as some of the most depraved in history.

Malcolm McDowell (NBC's top-rated Heroes, Rob Zombie's Halloween, A Clockwork Orange, Time After Time, If..., Cat People and O Lucky Man), Helen Mirren: 2007 Academy Award & Golden Globe Winner for The Queen; 2007 Emmy & Golden Globe winner for HBO's Elizabeth I; star of hit TV series Prime Suspect and films including National Treasure: Book of Secrets, Calendar Girls, Excalibur, The Mosquito Coast, and The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover), Peter O'Toole (Lawrence of Arabia, The Lion in Winter, The Ruling Class, My Favorite Year, Venus, The Stunt Man), John Gielgud (Gandhi, The Elephant Man, Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet, Alfred Hitchcock's Secret Agent, and Academy Award-winning role in Arthur).

Supporting cast includes a wide array of European cult actors including Teresa Ann Savoy (Salon Kitty), John Steiner (Mario Bava's Shock), Leopoldo Trieste (Cinema Paradiso), Mirella D'Angelo (Tenebrae), Paolo Bonacelli (Mission: Impossible III) and Adriana Asti (The Best of Youth).

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7057 in DVD
• Released on: 2007-10-02
• Rating: Unrated
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Box set, Color, DVD-Video, Special Edition, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, Italian
• Number of discs: 3
• Running time: 156 minutes

Amazon.com
Remember the dumbstruck, jaw-dropped expressions on "Springtime for Hitler's" shocked opening-night audience in Mel Brooks's original film of The Producers? That will no doubt be your face through much of the two-and-a-half-hour running time of this infamous 1979 pornographic epic that was a (Penthouse) pet project of publisher Bob Guccione. That's not necessarily a bad thing. But don't take our word for it. Listen to Helen Mirren--yes, the Oscar-winning Queen herself--who stars as Caesonia, Caligula's third wife and "the most promiscuous woman in Rome" (and in this film's salacious vision of Pagan Rome, that is saying something). In her very gracious, thoughtful and candid audio commentary that alone is worth the price of this set, she remarks, "I think it's a movie that is unlike any other, which is difficult to achieve." And for those of a more prurient bent, she adds, "It has an awful lot of bottoms." Malcolm McDowell (A Clockwork Orange) gives a brave and fearless performance as Caligula, the hated and feared emperor corrupted by absolute power and no doubt voted Most Likely to Be Assassinated. The film unflinchingly charts his plummet into madness and the brutality of his reign in scenes of hardcore sex and violence that cannot be described here ("I can't watch," Mirren cries to her interviewers over one scene in which unfortunate characters are beheaded by a blade-spinning combine. "I can't even listen to it").

Caligula is also a career curiosity for author Gore Vidal, who wrote the original screenplay, but later demanded his name be removed from the credits, and venerable actors Peter O'Toole, appearing briefly as the syphilitic Emperor Tiberius Caesar, and John Gielgud as Nerva, a Senator who'd rather take his own life than "live with this reptile." This controversial film's tortured history is untangled in a very helpful booklet that is packaged along with this set's three discs. One is hard-pressed to think of a more reviled film graced with such a gala presentation, but Caligula's defenders and the curious will be amply rewarded with both the original uncut theatrical version of the film and a re-edited alternate version. Supplementary material includes an hour of deleted footage, a pretentious "making of" documentary made during the film's production and a new interview with director Tinto Brass, whose softcore tendencies clashed with Guccioni's more extreme vision (Brass did not have final cut, allowing Guccione to insert more explicit footage into the film). McDowell contributes his own lively audio commentary. "God help us," he groans as the film begins, but by its bloody conclusion, he proclaims he has "no regrets at all" about making the film. Caligula, Mirren maintains, is "an irresistible mix of art and genitals." And you've got to hand it to Guccione. Especially in these politically correct times, it is still strong and scandalous stuff. --Donald Liebenson

Customer Reviews

I AM ALL MEN AS I AM NO MAN AND SO..........I AM GOD
The opening credit I typed is spoken brilliantly by Malcolm McDowell as the title character CALIGULA. In this we follow Caligula and his HORRORSHOW ways of torture-incest-decapitation/castration & bloodletting,there is also lots and lots of sex!!! This being a Penthouse film release one would expect that but this is much more then just a porn film. It is the first and only porn film I have seen(and friends I have seen a lot "COUGH")that actually tells a story. We follow Caligula on his quest for power and all the while he and his sister showing MUCH admiration for each other. This has beautiful music and great acting by not only its stars but supporting cast as well. The set design is awesome and for 1976(when it was filmed) you can really see the $17.5 million dollar production. Caligula is by no means for everyone and even the heavy-cut R presentation could make one mutter...OH! PLEASE! PLEASE STOP IT NOW!!!! The HORROR film CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST has been called THE MOST CONTROVERSIAL FILM FOR ALL TIME. Well I am here to say CALIGULA gives that statement a run for its $$$. Worth a watch for the open minded.

OPEN YOUR EYES EVELYN!

Sex, Nudity, Death....
Kind of like Roman History turned into a Rock N' Roll Music Video. Big name stars, lots of dancing, naked women, costly sets and, yes, a horse. Not for kids. Let's face it, a unrated movie, in which Penthouse took part in making is not something some adults should see. And DON'T even pretend you're watching it for the history. HBO's ROME kind of gets some of it right, when it comes to daily life. But this movie is like using the Smurfs to explain the Dark Ages. Don't even pretend it has anything correct. Just watch it. Enjoy it. And don't think too much about it.

Caligula (Three-Disc Imperial Edition) worth buying
The hundreds of different reviews of the movie Caligula are mixed, but everyone must admit one thing: there has never been a movie like it made. In the late 1970s, Penthouse Magazine came up with an extremely original idea: let's make a movie that has legitimate, mainstream actors in it and also pornography. In the 30 years since Caligula first came out, I can't think of another movie that has even attempted to do such a thing.
Even if you've seen earlier, 1980s editions of Caligula, you haven't seen the whole story contained in this Three-Disc Imperial Edition. This edition contains scenes that were cut out of prior editions. It even contains a re-edited version that contains Director Tinto Brass's original vision of the film, with the scenes Guicionni added in post-production left out.
Some of the never-before-seen scenes in this edition were never totally edited for completion, so some of them have video but no audio, I believe some of them are even in black and white. But there are also never before included scenes that are complete.
Caligula is considered one of the most controversial films ever made. When the film first aired at the 1979 Cannes Film Festival, it is believed this original version was over three hours long, and that some of the scenes shown at that festival were cut out and probably destroyed. This Three-Disc Imperial Edition doesn't contain all of these lost scenes, but it is the closest to the original you can get. [...] But this website is for mature audiences only (but then again so is the film).
By the way, there's another video called "Caligula: The Untold Story." Don't get that DVD, it sucks.