Roger Ebert Walked Out Of A Controversial '80s Historical Movie That Left Him 'Depressed'

Tinto Brass directed the epic film "Caligula," but he is only partially responsible for what made it to the big screen. "Caligula," produced by Penthouse Magazine magnate Bob Guccione, was notoriously re-edited multiple times in post without Brass' involvement, turning the film into an incomprehensible mess. Guccione also infamously shot multiple hardcore sex scenes after the fact, editing them into the theatrical cut of the movie. Brass took his name off the film and is only given a "principal photography by" credit. Gore Vidal is credited as the screenwriter, but so much additional sexual material was worked in that his credit read "adapted from a screenplay by." Classy actors like Malcolm McDowell, Helen Mirren, John Gielgud, and Peter O'Toole were convinced to participate, many of them not knowing that hardcore material would be edited in. O'Toole reportedly hated the movie. 

"Caligula" was filmed in 1976, but the editing jiggery-pokery took so long that it wasn't released in international theaters until 1979, and didn't get released in the United States until 1980. It ran a lugubrious 170 minutes. Since then, the film has been cut down to a leaner 156 minutes, but the flick is still bloated beyond recognition.

In the years after its release, "Caligula" attracted a cult following for how wild, expensive, and borderline unwatchable it is. It spawned a whole subgenre of smutty exploitation films about Caligula and/or the depraved acts of other notorious Roman emperors. McDowell's performance is spirited and wicked, and Mirren looks back on the film with fondness. 

Critics were not kind to "Caligula" back in 1980, however. Notoriously, Roger Ebert gave it zero stars, having walked out of the movie at about the two-hour mark. "'Caligula' is not good art," he wrote. "It is not good cinema, and it is not good porn."

Ebert was savage to "Caligula," pulling no punches. The famed film critic could be notoriously horny, having paused throughout his career to poetically describe the bodies of busty women. He was no prude. But "Caligula," he felt, was bleak and dour, making sex look decidedly un-fun. He began his review by saying that "'Caligula' is sickening, utterly worthless, shameful trash." He continued with "If it is not the worst film I have ever seen, that makes it all the more shameful: People with talent allowed themselves to participate in this travesty." 

Ebert pointed out that eroticism is fine — even welcome — in movies. He liked the "Emmanuelle" movies, and infamously wrote "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls" for his friend, the mammary-obsessed Russ Meyer. But watching "Caligula," he felt, was a bleak experience that left him "Disgusted and unspeakably depressed." He felt the filmmakers had become jaded about sex, reaching a point where it had ceased to be fun. "In the two hours of this film that I saw," he wrote, "there were no scenes of joy, natural pleasure, or good sensual cheer. There was, instead, a nauseating excursion into base and sad fantasies." 

As he was writing his review, Ebert might have realized how tantalizing he was making the film seem. If a critic calls any movie "one of the worst I've ever seen," a certain audience will flock to it, eager to witness the trainwreck for themselves. But Ebert called himself out, ensuring readers that, no, it's not fun. He wrote: "Surely people know, going in, that 'Caligula' is worthless. Surely they know there are other movies in town that are infinitely better. Yet here they are at 'Caligula.' It is very sad."

Ebert ended his review on a somewhat hopeful note, recalling that another viewer in the theater recognized "Caligula" as a "piece of s***." Maybe there was some hope for the world after all if he wasn't the only one who felt that way.

Indeed, Ebert wasn't the only one to trash "Caligula" upon its release. Most critics dogpiled on the film, noting how incomprehensible it was. No critic tut-tutted the film's extreme sex, and instead lambasted its bad editing, prolonged run time, and any sense of narrative or thematic cohesion. Only a certain section of hand-wringing moral crusaders had anything critical to say about the film's rampant sexuality. The film currently holds a miserable 18% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes (based on 33 reviews). 

As noted, "Caligula" spawned a huge number of imitators, including Bruno Mattei's "Caligula and Messalina," and Joe D'Amato's "Caligula: The Untold Story." Cesare Canevari's 1977 film "The Gestapo's Last Orgy" was later re-released in North America under the title "Caligula Reincarnated as Hitler," although the two films have nothing to do with one another. However notorious "Caligula" was, its production was well-documented and it soaked into a small corner of exploitation movie culture, remaining there indefinitely thanks to a robust home video market. 

"Caligula" occasionally popped up on the midnight movie circuit, keeping its legend alive. It wouldn't be until 2023 that interest rose to the level of "rescuing" "Caligula" from its bad editing. The 178-minute "Ultimate Cut" of "Caligula" was greeted with much more positive reviews, ultimately earning a 66% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. So it seems "Caligula" wasn't made a great film by the new edit, but it was at least made better. Hey, it surely couldn't have been worse.