MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*
Until I saw the above poster, with Gordon Scott's heroic Marcus on one cross and flanked on either side by two hot crossed babes (sorry, couldn't resist), I didn't notice that the same scene in the film had been intended to crudely replicate the familiar Christian scene of Jesus between the two thieves. I'm not saying that director Mario Costa was using the visual allusion for anything in particular. Although there's some plot-elements in which the good guys are being persecuted by Emperor Caracalls for being Christians, there's almost no Christian or anti-pagan polemic in GLADIATOR. And as other reviewers have noted, there's not even much gladiator-action either.
If anything, GLADIATOR is a little more of an anti-slavery thing. Two Silicians, Marcus and his princess Nisa (blonde Wandisa Guida) are taken to Rome as slaves, with the former being trained for the arena and the latter becoming a house-slave. It's also in Rome, though, that both of them, who are not romantically involved, pick up romantic partners. Marcus becomes infatuated with a barmaid named Aglae (brunette Ombretta Colli), while a Roman noble, Valerio, becomes enchanted with Nisa. There are a lot of talking-head scenes in which the slaves plot to gain their freedom, with occasional interruptions by Gordon Scott beating up Roman soldiers. Before getting put up on a cross, Marcus is threatened with having his eyes burned out so I guess that's a little more exotic than the usual tortures.
So, are there no bad women in this particular peplum? Female villainy does get representation from a tertiary character, Tullia (Eleanora Vargas) wife of Anno, both of whom join in tyrannizing over slaves, though I'm not even sure they cared about persecuting Christians. Actress Vargas appears to be significantly older than the other two female performers, though I don't have access to her birthdate. I heard, but did copy down, one line in which she seems to be disapproving of the younger Valerio wasting himself with a commoner female. There are no Mrs. Robinson moments as such though. In a fair number of peplum in this period, I have seen oppositions between good young women and bad older woman, so the writers of this otherwise unremarkable movie may have been playing around with that familiar trope, but not really doing much with it. Anno ends up getting killed in an end-battle that liberates Marcus and the hot crossed babes, Tullia ends up mourning him, and all the good people are freed by the auspices of a brand-new Emperor in town.
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