Is the X-rated 1970s movie Caligula a lost masterpiece?

The Roman epic was a fiasco, despite a cast that included Malcolm McDowell and Helen Mirren. James Mottram talks to the 'Clockwork Orange' star and the producer who has tried to restore its reputation with a new, three-hour recut

- James Mottram

When Malcolm McDowell first heard that a new cut of Caligula was being worked on, he simply rolled his eyes. "That's what I did," he says. "Because I never, ever wanted to talk about that damn film ever again.” The actor famed for roles in If… and A Clockwork Orange had high hopes when he originally signed up for Caligula, a portrait of the Roman emperor scripted by esteemed writer Gore Vidal, directed by the Italian filmmaker Tinto Brass and co-starring Helen Mirren, Peter O’Toole and Sir John Gielgud.

While Brass and Vidal didn’t exactly see eye-to-eye, the real problem came with the film’s financier, Bob Guccione, the founder of the erotic magazine Penthouse. McDowell had raised concerns even before the film was made, only to be told by a hopeful Vidal: “Think of him as one of the Warner Brothers.” But Guccione fell out with the director, firing Brass.

Worse was to come. After the film wrapped, Guccione covertly shot pornographic scenes with some Penthouse girls, and spliced the material into the film. When McDowell saw the final version, released in 1980 almost four years after shooting had concluded, he felt betrayed. “I advise people never to see it. It is a terrible film: exploitive and pornographic.” Mirren, who plays Caesonia, Caligula’s wife, took it in good humour, calling the film “an irresistible mix of art and genitals”.

But critics were appalled. “A trough of rotten swill,” wrote The New York Observer’s Rex Reed, while fellow reviewer Roger Ebert called it “sickening, utterly worthless, shameful trash”. McDowell was left shell-shocked. “I was really very depressed about it. Actually. I think I went into a depression. It affected me badly. Honestly, I think it was one of the reasons I left England.” The actor made a new home in Los Angeles.