Christ, what the hell does he think he's doing? Neck jutting out like that, voice shrill like that... C. M. Burns has more dramatic weight as a villain.
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"Tahiti is not in Europe! I'm going to be sick!"
I think it works if you look at him as whiny, immature and gay, which the actual Caligula was, no doubt...
"Cain and Abel will go to Heaven... if they can make it through Hell!" -Los Hijos Del Topo
I think he's great - simultaneously camp and weak but dangerous - a frightening combination.
shareHe stole the show.
Mad Man incarnate
Love The Oldies
I think he was an appropriately loathsome, psychotic Caligula also, but BOY he looked older than twenty-three. Maybe it was just a superlative makeup job.
shareHe wasn't too bad next to Victor Mature.
shareI agree. There's crazed and crazy but there's overacting and Jay was so overacting in this and even more so in Demetrius & the Gladiators that every scene he's in it's painful and cringe-worthy.
shareTony Blair (former British Prime Minister) used to remind me of Caligula in "The Robe" - especially when at his most grinning and manic. Now it's the other way around.
"Oh look - a lovely spider! And it's eating a butterfly!"
'' ,,
Ever study Caligula? He was effeminate, weak, screachy, bi-sexual, suspicious, murderous, cowardly, narcissistic, screamed alot, and psychotic beyond belief. In short, JR had his number, down flat.
shareI guess he over-acted as the Academy never nominated him for Supporting Actor, but he did a good job playing a tyrant who was insane and everybody remembers him after seeing his performance. He later became close friends with actress Bette Davis while filming The Virgin Queen. Later still, he got hooked on illegal drugs and wound-up serving time. Sad.
shareTo an actor, the worst thing you can say is that he was adequate. Before The Robe, the NY Times theater critic wrote that "Mr Robinson suffers from delusions of adequacy."
shareI find it laughable that some historian know-it-all are claiming that because Caligula was mad and effeminate it proves that Jay Robinson's portrayal was good. It's a fallacy. The actor played mad and effeminate alright, but in a completely over-stylized way that does not cohere with anything else that surrounds him. His screaming is ridiculous at best, as well as his wide gestures. It was probably a good approach to a theater role, not a film one.
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Sorry, I don't agree. I thought the performance was unique, engaging, scary, and quite to the point (a homicidal maniac with an empire validating him). Years after seeing the picture for the first time, his was the characterization I remembered most vividly. . . Seems to me, it might be a little difficult not to play a mad emperor with "the power of life and death over every being in the empire" as a bit "over-the-top". Then, again, these are entirely subjective opinions on both our parts.
shareRobinson tones it down in the sequel, Demetrius and the Gladiators. He plays well off Claudius and Claudius's sensual wife.
shareYears after seeing the picture for the first time, his was the characterization I remembered most vividly
Yes, Robinson's Caligula was definitely a good fit for the film. Theatrical and Frightening!
John Hurt's Caligula is equally frightening in, "I, Claudius" as we are again reminded of the terrible consequences we all face whenever madness and power surface in one man.
Robinson plays him like a British aristocrat gone to seed. The John Hurt portrayal was much more believable, powerful and interesting, even frightening.
shareHe was playing Caligula -----Let me repeat --He was playing Caligula.
shareYeah, he was playing a cruel crazy. My hat's off also to John Hurt in I Claudius, and especially to Malcolm McDowell in Caligula. Guccione's Caligula would have been alright without the gratuitous sex scenes, but in any case McDowell's performance in that film was the peak of corruption and lethal danger.
shareWhat are you talking about? His reaming out the Pratorean Guards after the escape of Demetrius was exceptional. He stole every scene he was in. 👍👏
Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded. Yogi Berra
He needed to be campy to balance out how straight the rest of the movie plays it. He, Victor Mature and Jeff Morrow seemed to be the only actors who injected any life into this otherwise dull film.
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