SIGN OF THE PAGAN (1954) C widescreen 92m dir: Douglas Sirk

w/Jeff Chandler, Jack Palance, Rita Gam, Ludmilla Tcherina, Jeff Morrow, George Dolenz, Eduard Franz, Allison Hayes, Alexander Scourby, Michael Ansara

Chandler plays a Roman centurion who is captured by Attila's barbaric army and escapes to prepare for the large-scale battle between the Christians and the Huns. But this movie is not recommended by FilmFrog for the plot, or even because it's a very good movie --- which it's not. The interest here is the director, Sirk, who is one of FilmFrog's very favorites. While Sirk's melodramas may be wholeheartedly recommended, this movie is primarily of interest because of Sirk's concentration on the character of Attila (Palance) and because it was Sirk's first use of CinemaScope. From Sirk on Sirk by Jon Halliday: Sirk: "I had a very good writer on the picture with me, Barre Lyndon. He was schooled in Marlowe, Ben Jonson, Shakespeare. ... I'm sure there is some very good dialogue by him in Sign of the Pagan . So, anyway, I was stuck with the Sign of the Pagan script and a star who did not want to play the lead. Now, apart from Chandler the studio had one other person they were trying to promote, Ludmilla Tcherina [who plays Princess Pulcheria in the film], who had figured in The Red Shoes . All she could do was dance --- though I got on well with her. She had a good body, but she could do nothing with her face. Any emotion she may have had must have gone straight down to her feet. I needed someone to play the all-important Attila part, and the picture was in a hurry. Chandler's definite attitude was that he had to be the good guy, a screen lover, and that it would be bad for his career to play what he called the heavy. I think he liked the idea of himself striding around in a toga and all that. Whereas my position was that the only interesting thing in the story was the fury of Attila ... this man pacing around himself and his impossible goal, trying to capture the citadel of religion, Rome, circling it like an animal. Attila is one of those characters turning around themselves I like so much. He fits into my gallery --- only he is a violent deviation from this usually quiet, Hamlet-like character. But this, more or less, was all there was that interested me. I honestly told Chandler this: that in my shooting of the picture the centre of attention would be Attila. He still woldn't hear of it. 'Let them love me,' he said. And I wasn't unhappy. Chandler wouldn't have been able to bring out the twilighty aspect of the character. Now, there was a lesser-known actor around, Jack Palance. He was famous, but not a leading man. The exhibitors didn't like him. I screened one of his pictures and I reckoned he might be all right in the part, if he had the strength to carry the picture. I pretty soon found out he did have sufficient presence on the screen. Everyone told me he would be difficult to get along with. But I found him most pliable. Palance immediately liked the idea of doing Attila. He was saying things like, 'Great, there I can grab an iron bar and smash in his skull.' I said to Chandler, 'Look out, because the part of the Hun is going to dominate the movie.' But he just said, 'I've never been upstaged by a heavy.' And, as you know, it came out Palance's film. ... The main thing was that with Sign of the Pagan, and the other Cinemascope pictures that I did, I was required to shoot so that the film would fit both the new Cinemascope screen and the old-size screen. You had one camera, and one lens, but you had to stage it so that it would fit both screens." For more information on Sirk's work and career, consult the lecture on IMITATION OF LIFE in FilmFrog's Archives.