The movie GLADIATOR was released in 2000. My friends and I gay maitre de greeted us and and asked where we had been.
"We saw GLADIATOR."
Joe made a face and hissed, "I saw it. I didn't like it."
"Why not" asked my ex-lover Ms. Carolina. She loved Russell Crowe.
"Because there were no queers."
"You mean like Tony Curtis and Laurence Olivier in SPARTACUS?"
"Exactly."
"Jude Law was a little swishy in the movie."
"Not enough to notice."
"You mean like Steve Reeves."
"Exactly." Joe nearly swooned with delight. "He was who the strange men meant when they asked me if I liked gladiator movies."
"Someone actually asked you that?"
"More than once and the answer was always yes."
Joe attended to a group of bankers at the entrance and Ms. Carolina whispered, "Now I understand what Peter Graves meant in AIRPLANE."
"No one ever asked me that?"
"I guess you weren't as luck as Joe."
Not many gladiator movies were made after 2000.
Certainly nothing like BEN HUR.
The other evening I was bored and watched QUO VADIS or where are you going in Latin.
The movie featured Robert Taylor, Deborah Kerr, Peter Ustinov and a cast of thousands.
The producer Sam Zimbalist chose art director Edward C. Carfagno to recreate Rome and all its glory and this film swished like silk curtains in the wind.
Peter Ustinov camped out Nero as a mad violet poet with ringlets.
The writer, actor, diplomat, and family man ( he had four kids ) allowed none of his scenes in QUO VADI to pass with flaming high and bright.
His wife resembled a drag queen.
They both dressed like they were going to the Gay Pride March.
Ustinov was a genius, because Rome was actually very puritan.
Nero's friends fell under his thrall.
Noble Romans were straight, but with a taste for brutality.
Christians were infecting the empire.
Peter looked like the Old Testament God.
The Romans knew where to put troublemakers.
The Colosseum.
Man versus beast.
Thumbs down.
Do I like gladiator movies?
Yes.
I prefer to spare life.
It is not a sign of weakness.
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