On February 1, 1980, the historical epic “Caligula” premiered in Midtown Manhattan at a newly renamed theater called Penthouse East.
The most expensive independent film of all time at that point, with a budget of $17.5 million (it beat “Star Wars” by $6 million), the movie was a starry affair.
In the title role was Malcolm McDowell, who played Alex DeLarge in “A Clockwork Orange.” His co-stars included Peter O’Toole of “Lawrence of Arabia,” British stage legend Sir John Gielgud and relative newcomer Helen Mirren.
The supporting cast? Porn stars.
“Caligula,” one of cinema’s oddest and most tawdry experiments, was produced by Penthouse magazine founder Bob Guccione, the massively wealthy publisher who poured his own money into the project about the infamously depraved ancient Roman emperor.
Opposed to the serious drama that director Tinto Brass and screenwriter Gore Vidal desired to make, Guccione commandeered the production in post and added graphic scenes of hardcore sex to spice things up.
A lot of sex. Multiple, unsimulated orgy scenes leave nothing to the imagination — and go well beyond what most imaginations can whip up. For instance, at Emperor Tiberius’ (O’Toole) home on the island of Capri, a completely nude woman wields a live eel.
Penthouse even published a special collectors edition in January 1981 called “Girls of Caligula,” the same of which could not be said of “Cleopatra” or “Spartacus.”
Critics were appalled at the gratuitous filth. Roger Ebert, generally open-minded, called it “sickening, utterly worthless, shameful trash.”
But starting Friday, a new version of that trash called “The Ultimate Cut” will begin playing select theaters.
For three years, filmmaker Thomas Negovan worked through 90 hours of footage, removed Guccione’s smut and stuck to literary icon Vidal’s script in an attempt to rescue one of film’s most notorious and controversial messes — a reputation the Penthouse founder always resented.
“If we wanted to make a porno movie,” he said at a 1980 New Haven, Connecticut, sneak preview The Post barged into, “we would have done it for $25,000 — not $17.5 million.”
Production on “Caligula” began in 1976 in Rome, where 64 gigantic sets were built over the course of a year. It was directed by Brass, an avant-garde filmmaker whose movies leaned erotic, and scripted by Vidal, author of “Myra Breckinridge.”
Even though the filthiest action was added two years after principal shooting, the stars still witnessed much more skin at work than they were used to.
On a 1994 episode of “Late Night With Conan O’Brien,” McDowell recalled asking Gielgud, “How come, Sir John, a knight of the realm is in a porno movie?”
The revered actor, who was 72 at the time, replied, “I’ve just come from the set. Have you seen all that c – – k? I’ve never seen so much c – – k in my life!”
The “Arthur” Oscar winner later told McDowell he saw the finished product three times. “Frightfully good,” he said.
Mirren, who played Caligula’s frequently naked wife, Caesonia, memorably called the much-mocked movie “an irresistible mix of art and genitals.”
“Caligula” was also extraordinarily violent, featuring a surreal decapitation machine — an advancing wall with spinning lawnmower blades.
A man’s guts spill onto the floor after he’s slashed in the stomach, and a maniacal Caligula grotesquely rapes a newlywed couple.
And don’t forget incest, necrophilia and the emperor winding up in bed with his favorite horse.
Still, as garish and debauched as it all was, Brass and Guccione butted heads because the American porn peddler felt it wasn’t X-rated enough.
So, the Penthouse founder brought in reinforcements.
“Another particularly good reason for doing this film was that it gave us as a company a terrific advantage, and that was of using the beautiful girls we portray in the magazine — the Penthouse Pets,” he said in a documentary.
To appear in “Caligula,” Guccione flew in 13 models, “two of whom,” he gushed, “were Pets of the Year!”
One of the “enhanced” sequences was an orgy scene aboard a multilevel ship in the emperor’s palace called “the imperial brothel,” in which (in the film, anyway) Caligula forces Roman senators’ wives to copulate for money.
Once the XXX material was in the can, the producer wrestled control of the editing process, adding the grainy, poorly-shot scenes into the main film.
Appalled and embarrassed, Vidal sued to get his name removed. He got halfway, so the credits read, “Based on an original screenplay by Gore Vidal.”
“I had to go to some expense to get my name out,” Vidal told the Chicago Tribune.
Also, Brass was no longer the director, but responsible for “principal photography.”
There were more hurdles. At US customs in 1979, the government seized the flick, contending it contained “obscenity,” but the film eventually made it into the country. Cities around the US, including Boston and Atlanta, continued to try to ban it, but failed.
Guccione used “Banned in Boston” on ads.
At the New Haven screening for Yale students, the college kids reportedly reacted to the movie with “cat-calls and hisses,” The Post wrote.
Guccione later ripped his own team to shreds during a Q&A session. He said O’Toole was “a disaster area” and that McDowell was “a crashing bore” who demanded close-ups.
A few days later, the film premiered at the Trans Lux East Theatre in New York, renamed the Penthouse East, and tickets cost a then-outrageous $7.50.
Because of its scandals, the film was a success, grossing about $30 million after a theatrical run and video releases.
In 1999, when a director’s cut (one different from the new version) was released, the Penthouse exec continued to stand up for his culty creation.
“I think it will be less controversial today” he told the Tribune. “I never saw it as pornography.”
No, he said, “[it’s] a cinematic icon.”
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