Uriah43 As most people probably know from reading the Iliad by Homer, "Helen" (Rossana Podesta) was the most beautiful woman in the world and happened to be married to "King Menelaus" (Niall MacGinnis) of Sparta. "Paris" (Jacques Sernas) was a Trojan prince who got shipwrecked near Sparta and upon seeing Helen fell in love and then managed to take her back to Troy with him. Some accounts say that Helen was kidnapped by Paris but others say she left of her own choosing. In any case this abduction resulted in all of the Greek city-states joining forces to besiege the city of Troy in order to return Helen back to Sparta. Now, as I stated earlier, since most people are probably familiar with the story of the Trojan War I probably don't need to elaborate any further. That said although this movie isn't completely true to the Iliad it is an interesting interpretation of the Trojan War and since there are other Greek sources with slightly different variations I suppose this version is as acceptable as anything else. Be that as it may I thought the casting of both Helen and Paris were good choices and each of them played their parts quite well. I also liked the cinematography which was excellent for its time. Accordingly, I believe that viewers who appreciate epic adventures of this type will thoroughly enjoy this particular movie and I rate it as above average.

Spikeopath Now over fifty years old, this almost epic film pales in comparison to other more notable sword and sandal movies. The scale of the film cannot be faulted, hundreds of extras & huge lavish sets are evident, while the piece is given a well regarded director in Robert Wise to chart its course.However, the problems with it are many. First off is that the film is terribly pedestrian for the first hour, a tepid script fails to engage and at times is unintentionally funny. Then there are major cast issues. Taking the leads of Paris & Helen are Jacques Sernas & Rossana Podestà respectively. They look the part, both of them undeniably pretty, but neither of them can act for toffee. Filmed in Rome, Italy, it begs the question on if the casting director walked around Lazio and picked the two blondest people available for the roles! In support of the Blondie's are a host of usually fine performers, Cedric Hardwicke, Stanley Baker, Niall MacGinnis, Harry Andrews, Torin Thatcher & Robert Douglas. A mixture of actors either too old for their roles, poorly written, or in the case of Douglas, an underused important character (Agamemnon).Shifting away from the awful back projection work, the action sequences fair much better. There's enough here in the second hour to please the sword & sandal fan. But if it's enough to make this a safe recommendation to the potential first time crowd? Well I wouldn't stake my life on it you know! It's a genre I personally love, so I wondered why I hadn't heard about it long before now? After viewing it it became evident why, it's just not any good. A generous 4/10 from me for the siege of Troy action construction, the stunt work throughout and for Baker's moody show as Achilles.

Steffi_P Paramount and Cecil B. DeMille kick-started the 1949-66 wave of ancient world epics with the biblical tale Samson and Delilah, while MGM and Fox made their mark with gospel spin-off stories Quo Vadis and The Robe respectively. Warner Brothers were a bit slower to jump on the bandwagon, and when they did the fables they chose were refreshingly pagan. In 1954 they produced the delightfully silly Land of the Pharaohs, and followed it up with this, one of the best-known and most enduring myths of ancient Greece.Pictures like this have a reputation for being somewhat corny and insincere. And Helen of Troy is a shameless part of that tradition. It is admittedly a neat and fast-moving retelling of the legend, but its dialogue ranges from laughable to banal. Characters make wooden statements that were obviously someone's idea of ancient wisdom. Slaves talk back to their masters without so much as a telling off. What is particularly inept is the way the writers obviously felt they had to get in famous lines like "The face that launched a thousand ships" and "Beware of Greeks bearing gifts", so we have to listen to them bending the dialogue towards these clichés, to the point where they sound utterly trite – "Hmm, that's a lot of ships out there, at least a few hundred… no I'd say a thousand. And what launched them, eh?" Other than poor writing, another thing that tended to make these epics lacking in intimacy was poor use of the new Cinemascope aspect ratio. This was a big problem in The Robe, which was the earliest release in that format, but Helen of Troy's director Robert Wise handles the wider image with care. While he takes full advantage of the extra space for crowds and spectacles, for the more intimate scenes he brings the performers closer to the camera, and mutes the backgrounds so as not to overwhelm the moment. He also makes great use of tiny bits of light or movement, especially the recurring fire motif, to draw our attention to certain bits of the screen, defying the tendency for individuals to get lost in a big screen. One of the best examples of Wise's control here is the first scene at the Spartan palace where Paris and Ajax have their knuckleduster dual. It's pretty clear that Jack Sernas and Maxwell Reed fight like, well, like a couple of bad actors, but Wise instead focuses us on the fervour of the crowd to give us a more savage impression of the brawl. He then moves in to close-ups of Niall MacGinnis and Rossana Podesta against plainer backgrounds, but still with a little movement in the frame to match their emotions.But all this sensitive direction cannot save us from some appalling acting performances. I can see why Sernas and Podesta were cast in the lead roles. They are both young and beautiful, and their unfamiliar faces give them a freshness and innocence. But they can't act, and the dubbing doesn't help. It's not all bad though. Niall MacGinnis gives a tremendous performance. He boils the character of Menelaus down to nothing more than a jealous husband, and his intense manner dominates the screen. Stanley Baker is also really good, radiating thoughtless aggression with his every move. As for the rest, no-one really stands out or satisfies, even such worthy names as Cedric Hardwicke and Nora Swinburne.The Warner Brothers epics of the 50s were really little more than B-picture with A-budgets. Like the equivalent productions at rival studios, they featured gargantuan sets, hordes of extras and breathtaking spectacles, but they also suffered from weak scripts and dull casts. Still, some of Robert Wise's best efforts up to this point were actual B-pictures that he had treated with credibility and managed to eke some depth and sentiment out of. It is his intelligent handling of the elements in the frame plus the handful of classy performances that raise this one just a little above a mediocrity.As a kind of postscript to this comment, here are a few miscellaneous points of interest. Max Steiner's score has his usual habit of commenting hysterically on every line or movement, but there are some nice little musical touches to the scene of the Greeks marching on Troy that are worth listening for. Later on, have a look at those siege towers. Isn't it convenient that the trapdoors fit exactly between the battlements of the Trojan walls? They must have got someone to go round with a tape measure before they built them. And finally, listen out for an early use of the Wilhelm scream sound effect, decades before it became hip and ironic.

Claudio Carvalho While the greedy Greeks plot to invade Troy to steal the treasures of the Trojans, Prince Paris (Jack Sernas) is assigned by his wise father and King of Troy to travel to Sparta and shows the peaceful intentions of his people. Along his journey, he falls off in the sea during a storm and is rescued on the shore by the Queen of Sparta Helen (Rossana Podestà). When he recovers, he believes that she is a slave and they fall in love for each other. When he arrives in the Spartan palace, he is arrested by King Menelaus (Niall MacGinnis) in his quarters but Helen helps him to escape. They travel together to Troy and give the excuse the Greeks need to start the war and put Troy under siege for years. The Greeks are unsuccessful in their intents, until they listen to the cunning Ulysses (Torin Thatcher) that decide s to withdraw the one thousand Greek ships from the Trojan waters and offer a wooden Horse of Troy as a gift to the winners. The underrated "Helen of Troy" is an engaging romantic adventure with a wonderful version of Homer's epic poem "The Iliad". The beauty of the Lybian Rossana Podestà compared to Aphrodite gives credibility to the passionate love of Paris. The grandiosity of scenarios and cast that includes a brunette Brigitte Bardot and the magnificent direction of Robert Wise make this feature a must-see. I do not understand the unfair bad reviews of this great epic. Just as a curiosity, the episode "Revenge of the Gods" of "The Time Tunnel" uses uncredited footages of this feature. My vote is nine.Title (Brazil): "Helena de Tróia" ("Helen of Troy")