This lavish and entertaining epic tells the biblical tale of Lot (Stewart Granger). The son of Abraham, he leads the pastoral Hebrew tribes from their homelands in the search for new pastures and soon arrives at the city of Sodom & Gomorrah, rather like the countryside alliance pitching up at Hyde Park Corner. The Sodomites (and therefore, I guess, Gomorrites) view these fun-loving God-botherers as harmless rustics, and allow them to buy some land on the banks of a nearby river which they presume to be barren. They had assumed, however, without Lot 's agrarian skills - and he's soon building a damn, which will allow them to store all of the water they will need to grow fruitful crops for many years to come.
Meanwhile, intrigue is afoot within the walls of Sodom , which has traditionally made its money in the trading of salt. The Queen (Anouk Aimee) keeps an uneasy rule, most especially because her brother Astaroth (Stanley Baker) is an utter cad. Not only does he sport a raffish goatee, but he's also in cahoots with a tribe of desert nomads, whom he bribes to attack the city. They are repelled thanks to the guile of the Hebrews, who unfortunately have to break their damn in the battle (and in a pretty spectacular sequence) to wash away their aggressors.
Left homeless and with their land ruined, Lot decides that the best thing for them to do is to move into Sodom and take up a new trade: selling salt. This does cause some ructions, as they are so successful that the native traders are forced to work their slaves all the harder. This slavery issue is the main bone of contention; the Hebrews believe it is immoral to own a person, the Sodomites just like being waited on by attractive wrenches and doing as little work as possible.
Lot believes that by intermingling with their hosts, the Hebrew belief will win out. This is also convenient for him because he's understandably spending a lot of time with his new wife, the ex-slave Ildith (porcelain beauty Pier Angeli). Unfortunately, it seems that his people are becoming more like the Sodomites as time progresses, rather than vice versa. Tensions are further exacerbated by the fact that the relentlessly devious Astaroth has taken to sleeping with both of Lot 's daughters.
Directed by famed American filmmaker Robert Aldrich, Sodom & Gomorrah benefits from a much larger budget than most peplums, as is evident with a couple of fantastic sequences as well as the aforementioned bursting damn. The shot of the desert nomads riding towards the city and then being foiled by the simple farming folk is by far the most impressive and is truly epic in scale (rather than the ten extras on flea-bitten horses that you tend to find in these films). The climactic destruction of the titular locations is also very memorable, despite a few too many collapsing polystyrene columns.
Unfortunately, the film doesn't really match up to it's fabulous opening, a tracking shot gliding over motionless bodies obviously prostrate after an orgy. This painterly tableau of debauchery is so striking that virtually anything that follows is bound to be a let down.
Therein lies the main problem of the film. The Sodomites are really far more sympathetic than the earnest and, dare I say it, fanatical Hebrews. Okay, so there are hints of some unusual sexual goings-on (mainly revolving around the Queen, with an incestuously close relationship to her brother as well a preferred handmaiden), but is this really any worse than the forcible repression that seems to be being advocated.
There are also a couple of torture sequences that are supposed to demonstrate how evil these city-dwellers are, but seeing Mimmo Palmara wearing a chest piece with spikes all over it hugging slave girls is hardly the stuff of nightmares. All of this means that the culminatory unveiling of God 's wrath seems rather unwarranted. If they don't do what you want, just blow 'em up, a philosophy which has, unfortunately, prevailed into the present day.
Even worse is the fact that by far the most sympathetic character in the film, Ildith, ends up turned into a pillar of salt for the heinous crime of looking back as her old home is destroyed. The reason given for this totally arbitrary act is, when it comes down to it, that she liked painting her toenails and didn't believe in God (well, she hadn't had the opportunity to see the cheesy superimposed beardy angels that Lot had).
Am I alone, here, or does anyone else wonder how on earth Stewart Granger became a major league star? I have no doubt as to his acting talent, but there's no way that I can believe in him as a character from the Old Testament. Apart from the token biblically wild hair he looks as though he should be out shooting lions and abusing natives. He comes across as so one dimensionally upstanding that you really hope that something really, really horrible (and far worse than Palmara's spiky armour) happens to him.
Fortunately, there are a bevy of classy performers in support. Anouk Aimee's turn as the Queen is fabulous; erotically charged, slightly sad and with a nasty streak bigger than Tony Blair's smile. Stanley Baker is always a delight to watch, one of the great forgotten English actors (just think of Zulu (64), Robbery (67) or, err, Lizard in a Woman’s Skin (71)). Stock Italian performers Giacomo Rossi Stuart , Rik Battaglia and Daniele Vargas all have relatively weighty roles, and the glamour is provided by the likes of the gorgeous Rosanna Podesta and the even more gorgeous Scilla Gabel.
Anthony Steffen has a secondary role as a captain of the guards who acts as sidekick to Astaroth. One of his rare bad-guy roles, he doesn't really make that much of an impression, although it's quite amusing when he gets crushed by a collapsing wall during the finale. His lieutenant, by the way, is played by Gabriele Tinti - who would go on to act opposite him in Eduardo Mulargia 's tip-top Death in Haiti (71).
Matt B
