Malcolm McDowell.  Helen Mirren.  Sir John Gielgud.  Peter O'Toole.  Teresa Ann Savoy.

 

It was the boldest move in cinema history: presenting the most celebrated and respected actors of the day in a film that could only be described as pornographic. Bob Guccione, founder of Penthouse magazine, set his sights on decimating the boundaries between art, sex, and cinema and succeeded to such a potent degree that even 40 years later, no theatrical event has come close to matching the scope and scandal of Caligula.

Produced with twice the budget of Star Wars, Caligula captured an unbelievable 96 hours of footage of boldly costumed drama, sex, and violence on the most extravagant stages imaginable, and at an estimated cost of 17.5 million dollars remains the most expensive and extravagant pornographic film ever created.

Originally envisioned as a historically accurate depiction of anarchy and corruption, the writer and director of the film (legendary author Gore Vidal, and counterculture icon Tinto Brass, respectively) ultimately distanced themselves from the production, having their names removed from the final product. The movie was ultimately released as an altered vision of the creators' vision, edited by Guccione himself, with extended pornographic sequences replacing important plot developments. Variety magazine called the movie "a moral holocaust" and famed critic Roger Ebert described the film as "sickening, utterly worthless, shameful trash," yet admitted in the same review that lines to see the film stretched around the block.

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Various edits of Caligula have surfaced over the years, each with only minor adjustments and brief bits of footage added from foreign releases.

 

Amidst the drama and excessive litigation surrounding the completion of the film, the original 96 hours of raw footage were spirited out of Italy, and hastily placed in mismarked cans to hide their location. In the years that followed, the camera negatives and any unseen footage of Caligula was long believed lost, and the possibility of a coherent edit of the materials took on a mythical status among cinephiles.

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In January 2020, it was announced that the original materials had been located and that Penthouse had commissioned author and archivist Thomas Negovan to produce a completely new edit of the film intended to honor the visions of the original creators and performers.

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On May 17th, 2023, Caligula: The Ultimate Cut premiered as an Official Selection at the Cannes Film Festival, after which The Guardian (UK) announced that "Negovan has unearthed a much clearer sense of a character arc, from Caligula as wary young man genuflecting to the mad emperor Tiberius (Peter O’Toole, on wonderful form), to a joyful freshly minted tyrant, through to the increasing cruelty and disintegration of his reason as he is driven mad by power."

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Malcolm McDowell posted on his social media that "Because of the brilliant work of Thomas Negovan, one of my best performances has finally come to light after 47 years" and in conversation with critic Mark Kermode (who called The Ultimate Cut "a revelation"), Helen Mirren commented favorably that in the Ultimate Cut "the film becomes more about relationships, and certainly the character of Caligula is more developed. That combination of intelligence and anarchy and courage and pure energy, I think, is fabulous."

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Critics have agreed. Amy Nicholson, now head film critic for LA Weekly, called it "a masterpiece," Todd Gilchrist of Variety called it "a heroic act of preservation," and The Telegraph (UK) listed it as #2 on their list of the The Twenty Greatest Roman Films of All Time.

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The movie is now viewable on streaming, on physical media, and most dramatically in a 35mm theatrical roadshow.