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Very disappointing...

Surprisingly incoherent and boring

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Finally found a copy on You tube with English subs and a copy considerably better in the one I had. Polidoro includes much of what was in the novel by Petronius if somewhat juggled fashion but seems to have a problem with the central fictional narrative (as opposed to the observations on Roman life included in the novel) detailing extremely salacious doings of its heroes Encolpio and his slave boy Giton which carry the narrative along. Giton is a randy character ready for any sexual adventure while his master has been cursed by the god of fertility and is impotent insuring he will never consummate his love of the boy . Polidoro seems to have found this too hot to handle and has Giton masquerading as a girl whom Encolpio treats as a sister. If so it didn't prevent the watchdogs of Italian morality that jailed some of the cast and fined Polidoro for corruption of minors as the boy that played Giton was under age. Noteworthy is a jaunty score that includes a boy's choir.

This neglected competitor to the Fellini version deserves to be seen by virtue of its own merits. The fragment of the original work which is all that remains of Petronius' great satire deals mainly with the excesses of Trimalchio's banquet...and that is fully present here and perhaps even better done. The sequence of the ceiling collapsing dramatically only to surprise the guests with a huge weighty cake is quite priceless, as is the faked death of the host so that everyone has to fawn on the (living) corpse, kissing it in gratitude for it's largess. Don Backy (who resembles Ray Danton) is really outstanding as Encolpio, the main character. His two comrades who support him in the numerous picaresque escapades are also well drawn and much more sympathetic than the more thuggish protagonists in Fellini's reading. There is more depth to them and sadness, too, missing in Fellini. If you like the Fellini version, you should definitely see this one, too. It's every bit as good and in some ways better.