The Colossus of Rhodes

The Colossus of Rhodes (1961)

Il colosso di Rodi

A monster statue of bronze and stone...A fabulous fortress 20 stories tall!

While on holiday in Rhodes, Athenian war hero Darios becomes involved in two different plots to overthrow the tyrannical king, one from Rhodian patriots and the other from sinister Phoenician agents.

Date of release
1961-06-15
TMDB
5.9 / 10 (227)
Runtime
2h 7m
Genres
Adventure, Drama, History
Director
Sergio Leone

Casting

Interesting facts

The Colossus of Rhodes is a 1961 peplum film co-written and directed by Sergio Leone, in his feature directorial debut. Starring Rory Calhoun and Lea Massari, it is a fictional account of the island of Rhodes during its classical period in the late 3rd-century BCE before coming under Roman control, using the Colossus of Rhodes as a backdrop for the story of a war hero who becomes involved in two different plots to overthrow a tyrannical king: one by Rhodian patriots and the other by Phoenician agents.

Production

The film was originally meant to star John Derek, but on set he immediately clashed with Sergio Leone and the crew, at first refusing to rehearse scenes, then colliding with the master of arms and attempting to interfere in Leone's directorial duties. Derek was fired in June 1960, and this resulted in a legal case.

Leone filmed exterior scenes at the Laredo Harbour in Cantabria, Spain; the Bay of Biscay, the Manzanares el Real and Ciudad Encantada at Cuenca. The rest of the film was shot at Cinecittà Studios in Rome.

Originally Leone planned to have the Colossus statue with the face of Benito Mussolini, before opting for a less explicit political metaphor and choosing a design inspired by the Stadio dei Marmi statues produced under the fascist regime.

Although no physical references of the original Helios Colossus are known to exist, the structure is rendered in this film as being an Etruscan image of the god Apollo following the kouros style of sculpture, with a slight “archaic smile.” It is about 300 feet high (nearly three times the height of its historical counterpart) and holds a bowl at chest level with elbows raised outward, straddling the harbor entrance.

While the statue in the film is made of iron and burnished brass (or perhaps bronze) and barefoot, barechested and bareheaded, wearing only a short men's Greek-style skirt and a headband, the original poster depicts the statue as highly polished bronze, completely outfitted with full panoply, including an attic helmet.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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