The famous scene in which Poppaea bathes in asses' milk took several days to shoot. DeMille announced to the press that real asses' milk was used; however, it was actually powdered cow's milk. After a few days under the hot lights, the milk turned sour, making it very unpleasant for Colbert to work in the stench. To save production expense during the Great Depression, existing sets were reused as well as costumes left over from the making of The Ten Commandments. DeMille also attempted to provide out-of-work actors jobs as extras such as the crowd arena scenes.
Marketing and distribution
marketed the film using market segmentation by focusing their promotion efforts on three market segments. The first was general moviegoers and movie enthusiasts who enjoyed certain features of religiously themed movies, movie goers who regularly attended church, and students of primary and elementary schools.
Editing for reissue after enforcement of the Production Code
As with many other pre-Code films that were reissued after the Motion Picture Production Code was strictly enforced in 1934, this film has a history of censorship. In the original version, Marcus Superbus is unsuccessful in his attempt to seduce Mercia, an innocent Christian girl. He then urges Ancaria to perform the erotic "Dance of the Naked Moon" that will "warm her into life". This "lesbian dance" was cut from the negative for a 1938 reissue, but was restored by MCA/Universal for its 1993 video release. Some gladiatorial combat footage was also cut for the 1938 reissue, as were arena sequences involving naked women being attacked by crocodiles and a gorilla. These were also restored in 1993. DeMille himself supervised a new version for its 1944 rerelease. New footage with a World War II setting, featuring actor Stanley Ridges was added to make the film more topical. In the new prologue, a group of planes is seen flying over what was ancient Rome. The conversation of the soldiers in one of the planes leads directly into the film's original opening scene. The last few seconds of the edited version of the film showed the planes flying off into the distance, rather than simply fading out on the original closing scene of the movie. For many years, this edited version was the only one available. The version now shown on Turner Classic Movies has been restored to the original 125 minute length by the UCLA Film and Television Archive with the help of the DeMille estate and Universal Television, which now owns most pre-1950 Paramount sound features.
The reaction of the Catholic Church in the United States to the content in this film and in Ann Vickers helped lead to the 1934 formation of the Catholic Legion of Decency, an organization dedicated to identifying and combating objectionable content, from the point of view of the Church, in motion pictures.
Home video release
This film, along with Four Frightened People, Cleopatra, The Crusades and Union Pacific, was released on DVD in 2006 by Universal Studios as part of The Cecil B. DeMille Collection, a new Blu-ray edition will be released on August 25, 2020 by Kino Lorber.
