MGM’s Quo vadis

The 1951 epic Quo Vadis, directed by Mervyn LeRoy, is the most famous adaptation of Henryk Sienkiewicz’s novel and eclipsed all earlier and later versions made between 1912 and 2001. This chapter is intended to illustrate the complexity of the Quo vadis (novel)/Quo Vadis (film) phenomenon by examining a few representative strands. To a large extent, credit for the impact of Quo Vadis belongs to actor Peter Ustinov, who made Rome’s most notorious emperor more familiar to viewers than any other actor has managed to do, especially through his portrayal of Nero as poet and musician. Ancient sources commenting on Nero as performer differ from what cinemagoers saw and heard in 1951. The spectacular climax of novel and film is set in the arena. Quo Vadis radically changed Sienkiewicz’s conception, which had been preserved, albeit in abbreviated form, in earlier films and would be presented at length only in 2001. By contrast, the Italian television adaptation of 1985 is a variation on the MGM version. The parallels to Sienkiewicz’s strongman Ursus in and beyond all these films are particularly illuminating. The title of Sienkiewicz’s novel, which quotes the Apostle Peter’s question to an apparition of his Lord, became a household phrase and has been applied in countless contexts since; a few telling instances are considered here. The chapter concludes with brief comments on the recent parody-plus-homage to Quo Vadis in the Coen brothers’ Hail, Caesar! (2016).