Sodom and Gomorrah: Notes on a Reconstruction, or Less Is More

Abstract

Before Cecil B. DeMille became forever identified with big budget, overblown religious epics through films such as The Ten Commandments (1922) and King of Kings (1927), both the Italians and the Austrians had been in the business of producing Monumentalfilme, as German speakers called them. The first wave of films from antiquity had been produced by the Italians, after the international successes of Quo Vadis (1913) and The Last Days of Pompeii (1913). The second wave of epics commenced with a two-part extravaganza, Sodom and Gomorrah (1922), 1 directed by Michael Curtiz for the Viennese Sascha-Filmindustrie A.G. Almost simultaneously, Alexander Korda released Samson and Delilah (1922), followed by Curtiz's Moon of Israel (1924) and Pierre Marodon's Salombô (1924), both again produced by Sascha. A hodgepodge of Old Testament and modern social critique, Sodom and Gomorrah starred George Reimers, Lucy Doraine, Kurt Ehrle, Walter Slezak, and Victor Varconi. 2 Premiered a week apart in October 1922, the two parts of Sodom and Gomorrah had a combined length of 3,945 meters, cost more money than any Austrian film ever made, utilized over three thousand extras, and had sets that rivaled anything Griffith created for Intolerance (1916). The film was a huge success in Europe, but flopped in the United States where it was released in a reedited version under the title of Queen of Sin. 3