Gore Vidal’s Caligula

Sorry everybody. These updates have gotten completely out of hand. We’ve rewritten this essay so many times and tried to fix it with so many patches that it became completely incoherent. (Ironically, that’s in keeping with the film, yes?) So I’m deleting the bulk of this scribbling, and my coauthor James E Chaffin and I hope to get it published, in a larger, greatly corrected version, as a proper book in the near future. In the meantime, I leave what I consider the most practical portion below.

• TRIMMING: SCENE 9. Among the entourage escorting Caligula to Tiberius’s palace at Capri is a slender young fellow with long curly blond hair. He is present throughout much of the remainder of the film, but we never know why. (He is not in Vidal’s script.)

• SCRAMBLING AND TRIMMING: SCENE 10. Nerva and Caligula walk down the corridor toward Tiberius’s lair. Behind the curtains are the sounds of beatings and wailings. Caligula takes a brief peek, but we don’t see what he sees. Then, several scenes later, we are presented with fragments of the tortures that Caligula peeked at several scenes previously. Later we see servants cleaning and clearing the hall early one morning before their masters have gotten out of bed. But in actuality it seems that some of that footage belong here, as at least a few of these slaves are clearing the path for Nerva and Caligula several scenes ago. (Much of this material was not in Vidal’s script. AND MUCH OF THIS FOOTAGE IS MISSING FROM THE VAULTS. IF YOU KNOW WHERE IT WENT, PLEASE WRITE TO ME IMMEDIATELY. IF WE CAN FIND IT, I’LL MAKE CERTAIN IT IS PRESERVED AND MADE AVAILABLE. THANKS!)

• SCRAMBLING: SCENE 12. Tiberius’s Machiavellian monologue is interspersed with fragments of an orgy shot partly through distorting mirrors. This orgy certainly took place in Tiberius’s hideout, but in a cushioned room, not on the three-tiered structure that Caligula and Tiberius are exploring, but there’s no other remaining hint of its meaning or context. (This particular orgy is not in Vidal’s script.)

• INCORRECT FOOTAGE: SCENE 14. In one atypical instance, a bit of action was not de-emphasized, but over-emphasized: Apparently to make sure we understand that the slave girl has been killed by poisoned wine, her collapse onto the floor interrupts a line of Tiberius’s dialogue, as well as his walk up a slope, which then awkwardly picks up on the exact frame where it left off several seconds earlier.

• TRIMMING: SCENE 15. The beginning of Caligula’s shave is deleted, depriving the scene of its context. The shave is not in Vidal’s script, but it was in Suetonius and it was also in Roberto Rossellini’s original treatment: Caligula’s ritual first shave and the sacrificial offering of his beard is ordered by Tiberius so that he will be symbolically a man, ready to take the throne — but Caligula feels humiliated when the ritual is performed without the traditional ceremony or celebrants. What Brass and McDowell did with these ideas remains, for now, a mystery.

• TRIMMING: SCENE 19. Giuseppe Maffioli portrays a priest who prays over Tiberius’s masked corpse and names Caligula new emperor. (In other scenes Maffioli, in the same get-up, plays Proculus’s butler and Caligula’s butler.) Among the entourage on Caligula’s dais is the High Priest Bergarius, with a band across his forehead and a tall cap with a golden emblem. Played by well-known Argentinian artist Eduardo Bergara Leumann, this was once an important though minor character in the story, but now he appears only in the background of this and numerous subsequent scenes. He is almost unnoticeable on a casual first viewing of the film. But once he is noticed, he fascinates us with his all-knowing stillness. (Bergarius is not in Vidal’s script.)

• TRIMMING: SCENE 21. Another scene that was chopped in two originally opened with Drusilla feeding her leopard cub. She and Caligula hear a noise from behind the moon mask on the wall, indicating that they are not alone. But the sound is now entirely removed from the audio track. Caligula discovers two homosexual guards in the heat of passion in the secret listening room and chases them away. The scene is cut impossibly short, and seems to include a few frames from a different take. (A single spy, who actually is spying through the listening hole, occurs in a different place in Vidal’s script.) The conversation through the moon mask’s mouth is also cut short, and then the scene cuts away altogether. The second part of this scene wrongly appears later in the film. After Caligula and Drusilla discuss, through the Moon mask, the dangers that Macro poses, Chærea and the quarreling senators enter. Caligula “judges” their dispute, and once they are sent away, he and Drusilla laugh delightedly. (The transposed portion of this scene was not in Vidal’s script, but was apparently retained in the final cut of the film as it serves to introduce the disputatious senators. The transposition was a poor decision. In its proper sequence, this incident would reveal why Caligula would shortly thereafter choose the docile Chærea to succeed the domineering Macro.) Here’s how the scene is supposed to play:

• TRIMMING: SCENE 22. When Chærea orders the arrest of Macro, High Priest Bergarius taps him on the back, but this is almost unnoticeable in the extreme long shot, and there is no follow-up. (This scene is obviously shorn of its beginning and end, as this material was presented quite differently in Vidal’s script.)

• TRIMMING: SCENE 24. (There is a gap in the shooting script, as Scene 23 was deleted prior to filming.) After Caligula orders Ennia’s exile, there is a cut to a seemingly later scene in which he happily announces to Drusilla, “At least now she doesn’t have to get a divorce!” But that was not a new scene. After he orders Ennia’s exile, he actually just walks out onto the veranda because he sees Drusilla approaching, and exclaims: “At least now she doesn’t have to get a divorce!” The tiniest little snip can turn one scene into two. Amazing, isn’t it?

• TRIMMING: SCENE 25. When we first see Caligula and Drusilla enter the sanctuary of the Isis pool, they momentarily suppress a giggle. Something has just happened, and it was more than merely amusement at the emperor’s feminine disguise. What did we miss? (The giggle and its motivation were not in Vidal’s script.) Nearly every shot in this scene is out of sequence, and some are rejects that should never have been included. In original intention, there is no lesbian orgy until Caligula spots Cæsonia, and it doesn’t go into full gear until he leaves the room. Note that a close shot of the high priestess fails to match her medium shot. Two takes of the same action are also included. Caligula walks up behind a burning brazier as Cæsonia, with her back to the camera, is ritually pouring incense into a censer. Just as he notices her, there is a cut to a different shot. Brass had clearly rejected that take. Half a minute later is a superior retake, with Caligula already behind the brazier as Cæsonia approaches the censer and catches his eye. Frustratingly, we never get a good look at the important sculpture in the pool; it is a giant reclining image of Isis. Another problem with this scene is the editors’ insistence on highlighting the three Penthouse models — Anneka di Lorenzo, Lori Wagner, and Jane Hargrave — to the detriment of all the other extras.

• TRIMMING: SCENE 27. When Caligula first sees Proculus at the stadium, he whispers something to Longinus, who bursts out laughing. Then the scene ends abruptly. In actuality, this is out of sequence and the scene went on. In proper sequence, as the head-mower approaches Macro, Caligula whispers to Longinus to order Proculus tossed in front of the oncoming machine. The crowd enthusiastically pelt both Macro and Proculus with eggs and rotten fruit. Macro is beheaded, and the beleaguered Proculus overpowers a guard to seek salvation by leaping onto the oncoming killing-machine rather than get ground to bits underneath it. Caligula crowns him a Roman hero. And then the scene ends with a brief visual joke. Tinto Brass had actually begun to edit this scene himself, but he was fired before he could incorporate all the inserts and before he could perform any sort of polish. The pre-release version basically follows this unfinished and unrefined preliminary assembly, but puts the shots into a different sequence, by which Caligula does not think to have Proculus tossed into the stadium until after Macro is beheaded. The result is pathetically dull. (This can still be seen in Io Caligola, of which more below.) Rather than trying to polish and improve the scene, Guccione and Lui simply amputated it.

As the head-mower is approaching Macro, Caligula has fun by ordering Proculus tossed in front it as well. Proculus defeats the machine, and Caligula crowns him a Roman hero. There then follows a comical coda, which is now missing. If you know the whereabouts, please write to me. Thanks!

• SCRAMBLING AND TRIMMING: SCENE 34. The scene in which Caligula reports for duty is severely trimmed — and misplaced. It belongs earlier in the film, immediately after the Livia-Proculus wedding scene. The filming of a take is included in A Documentary on the Making of “Gore Vidal’s Caligula” and in this we can get a good idea of what we’re missing. (This dialogue is Vidal’s; so the cut is puzzling.) The final line, “Let’s see if Proculus can liven things up for us” was obviously invented in the dubbing studio, to cover missing scenes and to mask the scrambling.

SCENE 34. INT. CLERKS’ OFFICE.

After squandering his valuable time raping some newlyweds, Caligula reports back for duty, which consists of mindlessly placing his seal on each sheet of a huge ream of documents. He throws a tantrum, refuses to continue, and tells instead of his plans for an artificial famine, a conquest of Persia, a public library that would not include such boring old sods as Homer or Virgil, a bridge across the Bay of Naples, a ship with a garden, a flood in the amphitheatre so that the Greeks and Persians can conduct a sea battle, an edict that Romans no longer be so ugly. Longinus’s response to every idea: “Yes, Lord.” “Can’t you ever say anything except ‘Yes, Lord’? No wonder life’s dull.” He leaves the room giggling like Daffy Duck. (Romans of the time did not have a word for “sods.” And who’s the dude with the hair?)

The next scene is the storm at night when Caligula becomes convinced that Gemellus is trying to kill him.

• TRIMMING: SCENE 35. The threesome with Cæsonia, Caligula and Drusilla is an awkward mess because the important bits are missing. The editors (under Guccione’s instructions) almost entirely deleted the ladies-in-waiting (rumored to have been a lesbian act). The ominous shots of the moon mask on the wall surely led to the revelation that a spy is lurking in the dark cubbyhole behind, watching and witnessing. But the editors deleted this court intrigue and impossibly replaced the spy’s small cubbyhole with another bedroom inhabited by two Penthouse models who cavort impossibly on Caligula’s bed which magically replicated itself. (Caligula, Drusilla and Cæsonia are not spied upon in this scene in Vidal’s script.)

• TRIMMING: SCENE 36. Some establishing material is missing from the opening of the banquet which the emperor enters on horseback. Gemellus and Charicles are already scared out of their wits and the two priests direct glares of hatred toward the emperor when they are out of his field of vision. But since their motivation is largely missing, we probably won’t notice on a first viewing. Most likely all would have been clear to us if only we could have seen the spy from the night before. A frame-by-frame examination reveals numerous details that Brass surely went to some pains to establish, but that are now elided over. What is the purpose of the banquet, who are these people, and why is that mysterious leopard cub in their midst again? (These details were not in Vidal’s script.) Though affectionate colleagues, Cæsonia and Drusilla also feel jealous of each other, but Cæsonia’s silent gloating over the quarrel between Caligula and Drusilla is here hinted at. Was it once more explicit? The unnamed Agrippina, who as we never learn is another of Caligula’s sisters, starts petting Caligula. Messalina, who is never named, is, as we never learn, married to Claudius, joins in the fun. Finally Claudius also joins in by petting Agrippina. So little emphasis is placed upon this last action that it will likely pass the viewer by. This scene seems to end too abruptly, probably because the transition to Scene 36A was deleted.

• SCRAMBLING: SCENE 36A. This is the most confusing thing in the movie; it makes no sense at all. Gore Vidal had Caligula go on a rampage against pretty much anyone and everyone after Drusilla’s death, and that’s when he topped all his previous cruelties with the sadistic torture and dismemberment of Proculus. Originally Brass and McDowell cut the torture/execution/castration of Proculus, but apparently the producers ordered them to reinstate it. Well, reinistate it they did, but why they put it here, in the second act rather than the third, is anybody’s guess. Vidal wrote Proculus as a charismatic super-athlete who beamed self-confidence. Brass and McDowell changed him to a hapless nonentity. They completely rewrote this scene, too, entirely changing Caligula’s motivation. And though Vidal ended the scene with Caligula ordering the castration of the corpse, the filmmakers decided actually to show it (with a deliberately unbelievable prop). When Vidal complained that the filmmakers had made Caligula a monster from the beginning, this is what he was talking about. The scene now discards Vidal’s terrifying realism, replacing it with a distancing surrealism. Caligula orders and oversees the torture and execution of Proculus, from which he takes great comical enjoyment. All the onlookers are delighted by the proceedings, and then Agrippina and Messalina (obviously added to the scene at the last moment) laughingly humiliate Proculus’s corpse. Significantly, Caligula’s trusted colleague Cæsonia is not witness to this atrocity. One can understand why the editors would want to move this scene; I would hazard a guess that Tinto Brass himself may have wanted to move it. But why did the editors move it from just before the “fever” to just after it, rather than to later in the story where Vidal had originally put it? Puzzling, to say the least.

• INCORRECT FOOTAGE: SCENE 38. When Caligula is ill in bed, suffering from a plague, he asks for Longinus. Cæsonia looks out onto the veranda, and in a long shot we see what she sees: actors standing in place waiting for Tinto Brass to call out “Action!”

• TRIMMING: SCENE 39 (continuous with above). We briefly see a shot of a crowd holding vigil outside Caligula’s palace. There was obviously more to this. In Vidal’s (and Brass’s) conception, Caligula had made himself immensely popular among the masses, not only by his amnesty but by restoring laws and public institutions that Tiberius had dismantled. But now we are left only with this momentary shot and we can’t know what to make of it. (Oddly enough, this sequence actually is in Vidal’s script! So the cut is made even more inexplicable. Curiously, this was shot on the same location as SCENES 45 and 48.)

• SCRAMBLING: Toward the end of the film we see Chærea, Longinus, High Priest Bergarius, and several other politicians who are plotting the emperor’s assassination. But no such scene was ever filmed! This was created entirely by Lui’s postproduction crew, who utilized discarded fragments of SCENE 39 and pasted deleted dialogue over them, and, beyond that, pasted newly invented dialogue on top of them. While Caligula was semi-delirious in bed, Chærea, Longinus, and several other government officials gathered outside on the veranda to discuss the implications of their emperor’s possible death. We already saw an abridgment of this sequence earlier on, in its proper place. But Lui and his crew had chopped out so many important scenes toward the end of the film that they had to cover the cuts by fabricating a new scene from deleted footage. Only two brief half-lines (“...he’s a tyrant!” and “...if Caligula were to die”) really belong here. All the rest of the dialogue is spurious. For instance, lip reading reveals that Bergarius’s unscripted line, “It could happen,” is actually “Never do that!” (his close up doesn’t match the main shot either). To help ensure that the audience won’t catch on, the editors largely chose footage showing people’s backs to the camera, which allowed for more convincing voice-overs. The editors were careful, also, never to reveal the assassinated Senator Acesius who partakes in this discussion. (This portion of the illness scene is not in Vidal’s script.)

ACESIUS: Just listen to the crowds....
LONGINUS: How the people love him!
SENATOR: Yet nobody is safe with him.
CHÆREA: The Empire is safe.
SENATOR: The Empire? But he’s a tyrant!
CHÆREA: Better tyranny than anarchy. I know your feelings... but personal feelings must not affect us. A few families in Rome may suffer, but the Empire is stable. There could be far worse horrors — revolution, war, civil chaos — if Caligula were to die.
ACESIUS: It looks as if he’s going to die anyway.

Scene 40A was the sylvan idyll, fragments of which now wrongly open the movie. Marco Fornier perceptively pointed out that Tinto Brass later used this very location for the sylvan idyll in Capriccio.

• SCRAMBLING AND TRIMMING: SCENE 40A. The prologue of Caligula and Drusilla playing in the woods was to have occurred after Caligula’s recovery from his “fever.” It is their (only?) bucolic fling, replete with a retinue of guards and three topless priestesses of Isis dancing in the woods who, nymphlike, start to explore a shepherd boy who is asleep under a tree as a flock of sheep are driven by. Since this scene was never scripted, it could conceivably have been plopped elsewhere in the movie. I had long thought this was supposed to come at the beginning of Caligula’s reign. Nope. It was definitely Scene 40A. Anyway, this sylvan scene is now missing its beginning and ending and is thus rendered a meaningless fragment, with the priestesses barely noticeable. Production audio was recorded but has since been lost, this scene was never properly dubbed, and the opening seems to be missing, which is why it no longer synchronizes to the music that was originally written for it. (This scene was added almost surely because the scheduled sets and/or costumes and/or actors were not ready yet, and the crew were required to get film in the can.)

• SCRAMBLING AND TRIMMING: SCENE 42. For only a moment, we catch a glimpse of Caligula playing with an adorable little pet rat who is harnessed to a rather beautiful little toy chariot. Then he (Caligula, not the rat) looks with apprehension at a bird of ill omen which has just flown in. But we don’t have any idea why on earth we’re seeing this. In the movie as currently assembled, this precedes the birth of Caligula’s daughter.

Fortunately, this publicity still is taken from a little further back, and we can see some of the context. Thus can we see that there is simply no way this scene could possibly have preceded the birth of Caligula’s daughter!

The shooting script offers some clues. In SCENE 41, Drusilla collapsed from a plague immediately after Caligula’s baby Julia is born. Then SCENE 42 takes place apparently some months later:

Caligula paces restlessly as Cæsonia nurses the baby Julia. The bird flies in and beats around the walls and ceiling. Caligula stares at it in superstitious dread. It flies out. Caligula stands for a second transfixed.

CÆSONIA: Caligula...

CALIGULA: What does it mean?

Cæsonia looks at him, confused. Suddenly he runs out.

Then in SCENE 43 we see where he ran: Drusilla’s bedroom, where he witnesses her death. So it appears that Drusilla’s illness lingered for at least half a year, for that infant is certainly no longer a new-born. The toy chariot was clearly a last-minute improvisation. (This scene is not in Vidal’s script.) There is a change here too, with the added sound effect of the rat howling in distress, giving the audience quite the wrong impression of what Caligula is actually doing.

Having heeded the warning of the bird of ill omen, Caligula rushes in a panic to the bedside of his sister, who has been suffering for months with the plague.

• TRIMMING AND INCORRECT FOOTAGE: SCENE 43. In Drusilla’s death scene the cameras linger on close shots of the main characters, with every attempt made in the editing to remove as much as possible of the peripheral characters. One shot pointlessly holds on Drusilla’s corpse as Caligula makes much commotion chasing away the off-screen extras. (These extras were not in Vidal’s script.) This is one of the most unmistakably mutilated sequences in the film. Anyone in the audience who has not fallen asleep by now will see that something is terribly wrong, but might assume only that the cinematographer himself fell asleep before he could turn his camera around to film the action.

Caligula carries his sister’s body across the veranda to take her back to his Palatine palace. Note the anachronistic Roman ruins painted on the wall of the set and some gigantic studio lights blazing overhead. Much of this Eastmancolor movie was actually lit for black and white, as this still illustrates. This portion of the scene is deleted from most copies.

Back at the Palatine Palace. If you see a copy of the movie with this shot, you’re missing the previous shot. If you see a copy of the movie with the previous shot, you’re missing this shot.

• INCORRECT FOOTAGE: SCENE 49. In the underground jail cell, a prisoner who is manacled to the wall bursts out laughing at Caligula’s magic trick. But he is confined to the background of the main shot, deprived of the close-ups that would give the scene the comic touch it deserves. (This prisoner is not in Vidal’s script.)

• TRIMMING AND INCORRECT FOOTAGE: SCENE 50. This shot is from Camera 1, and quite obviously either Camera 2 or Camera 3 would have concentrated on the little interaction on the left of the screen, consisting of a silent squabble between High Priest Bergarius and the “Little Giant,” which we can barely notice in the movie as it stands. (This action does not appear in Vidal’s script.)

After having returned from his flight to the Suburra, Caligula enters the Senate House to declare he is now a god. He announces, “The period of mourning is over.” He pulls down the black drapes. “One month of free games and free food for every citizen of Rome.” The senators hail Caligula the god. CUT TO a scene that Gore Vidal clearly did not write:

• DELETION: SCENE 51. INT. CALIGULA’S ROOM — DAY
Caesonia massages the badly bruised Caligula.

Caesonia chides Caligula for having the senators declare him a god. Caligula asks her, “Yes, I’m a god in human form. You believe that, don’t you?” Caesonia answers Yes, to which Caligula retorts, “Then you are as stupid as the rest of them. I’m surrounded by hypocrites! Monkeys! Forever chattering about love and service and loyalty! Monkeys!”

Caesonia cries that she doesn’t want Caligula to die. Caligula replies, “You must be unique.”... “We have our daughter... we could have a son. We could be happy....” Caligula is cynical: “A happy family on the imperial throne? That would be a novelty!” Caesonia is worried: “But... do you have to make your contempt for the institutions... for everyone... so obvious?” “Yes.”

Caligula turns over on his back, points to his midsection, and instructs Caesonia to conclude with a sexual massage.

• DELETION: SCENE 52. JUPITER’S TEMPLE — DAY
Caligula replaces the marble heads of statues of the gods with plastic replicas of his own head (which in some angles resemble Gore Vidal’s face far more than Malcolm McDowell’s!). He wanders among the images of himself, as Longinus worries about the deficit. Caligula cuts him short, preferring to talk about starting a war. He demonstrates his new march.

In slow motion, he jumps in and revels in his new-found riches. This scene is deleted in its entirety (even though its close equivalent is in Vidal’s script).

• DELETION: SCENE 54 (continuous with above). Caligula continues his rewriting of the rules by illustrating a political parable, sacrificing a priest rather than a bull to the gods, much to the priest’s surprise. Caligula proclaims that he is now king of the gods, outranking Jupiter. In the script, though maybe not in the film, the emperor then tosses out the other sacrifices to a hungry crowd. (A few moments of the filming of a take are included in the documentary.) MUCH OF THIS FOOTAGE OF THE TEMPLE OF JUPITER WENT MISSING YEARS AGO AND IS NOT INCLUDED IN THE FILM POSSIBLY FOR THE SIMPLE REASON THAT SOMEONE WALKED OFF WITH SO MUCH OF IT!!!!! BITS AND PIECES OF THE WORKPRINT ARE STILL AROUND, THOUGH THE SCRATCH TRACK HAS BEEN HORRENDOUSLY DEGRADED. BUT THE NEGATIVES ARE ALL GONE. IF YOU KNOW THE WHEREABOUTS OF THIS FOOTAGE, PLEASE CONTACT ME IMMEDIATELY!!!!! I SHALL MAKE CERTAIN THAT IT IS PRESERVED AND MADE AVAILABLE.

• TRIMMING: SCENES 55& 56 (continuous). Enough with gruesome murders. Time to go back to light comedy. Another instance of deletion is the scene in which Caligula reveals his plans for a brothel to Longinus. The beginning of this scene is missing. Caligula is making himself up in the mirror, and the “Little Giant” accidentally jabs him with a pin. Caligula gleefully punches him in the jaw. All that is gone now. Now we open with the “Little Giant” inexplicably rubbing his jaw as if in pain. Then a distinctively Brassian joke was lost. It appears that this scene ends as Caligula walks off, and that the next scene in the Imperial Brothel takes place some time later. A careful examination of the film reveals that this was not originally the case at all. After telling Longinus of his plan for a brothel, Caligula and his retinue walk into the next room where the brothel is already in full operation! Obviously, Giancarlo Lui found this absurdist humor too bizarre for his taste, deleted the transition shot from one room to the next, and added the sound of a gong to the first remaining shot in the brothel room to create the illusion of the passage of time.

• TRIMMING: SCENE 62. The scene of the celebration of the conquest of Britain concludes with Caligula commenting on the secret plot against his life: “A plot is always a secret. If it’s not a secret then it’s not a plot but a plan, is it not Claudius? Even a half-wit can see that and you’re a half-wit.” To which Claudius eloquently replies, “Half of me is, Cæsar.” But actually the scene went on a little further, as Caligula asks Longinus when the next Consular election will be held. (The ending of this scene, predictably, is missing from the vaults. If you know the whereabouts, PLEASE WRITE TO ME RIGHT AWAY! Thanks!)

• DELETION: SCENE 63. Caligula names his horse a consul. This scene is deleted in its entirety (even though it’s in Vidal’s script). (In case you didn’t guess already, this scene is missing from the vaults. If you know the whereabouts, PLEASE WRITE TO ME RIGHT AWAY! Thanks!) A brief moment is included in the documentary.

If the unlikely legend of Caligula making his horse a consul is truthful, it could be counted as one of his few known sane acts. Gore Vidal and Anthony Barrett, separately, have argued that a horse would make a far finer politician, leader, and rôle model than any of its human rivals. I am in full agreement, and am deeply suspicious of anyone who would attempt to make the contrary case.

Since this is impossible to see in the scan to the far left, here is an enlarged detail. Note that the “Little Giant” is also wearing a ceremonial beard — on top of his real beard.

• INCORRECT FOOTAGE: SCENE 70. During a break from the rehearsal of the religious drama, the “Little Giant” amuses Caligula’s little daughter by clacking his finger coverings together. But since they are in long shot and obscured by another character, this charming little interaction is nearly unnoticeable.

• TRIMMING: One of Brass’s assistant editors, Stuart Urban, recalls numerous scenes of extreme (though simulated) debauchery that Brass included but that ultimately never made it to movie screens. Three examples: lengthier group-sex scenes as John Gielgud and other actors stand amidst throngs of orgiasts, an automatic spanking machine, a line-up of a hundred or so prostitutes who bend over and caress themselves one by one as the camera dollies past. (So much for Guccione’s famed opposition to the censorship of sexual material!) Also, Brass once spoke of the bit in which Caligula briefly loses his signet ring in Proculus’s anus after raping him. This particular version of the scene seems to have vanished long ago. IF YOU KNOW WHERE THIS FOOTAGE IS, PLEASE CONTACT ME IMMEDIATELY!!!! I SHALL MAKE CERTAIN THAT IT IS PRESERVED AND MADE AVAILABLE. THANKS!) (None of these details is in Vidal’s script.)

Do you enjoy solving mysteries? Hope so. It’s my favorite hobby. Here we have a mystery. Pay attention to the clues: The divan on the left is distinctively 1970s imitation leather, a common office item. The lighting is not designed, but is simply office lighting with sunlight streaming in through Venetian blinds. So this is probably a test shot. But if so, what is it a test of? These extras are too well-costumed and made-up to be mere auditionees. They have already been cast. But who are they? Are they in the final cut of the film? I don’t recognize any of them. And why was this shot taken? Whom did it help, and how and why? Was it just a souvenir?