HELEN OF TROY

Robert Wise’s Helen of Troy so perfectly exemplifies the inanities and historical ignorance of the ancient world epics typical of its decade that it’s something of a prototype. And yet, without half trying, it makes a case for films of its kind. It’s representative of its kind in every negative respect. The dialogue is jazzed up for 50s teenagers and the cast, though boasting a healthy dosage of Italian and French actors, looks more at home in LA than Sparta. Its historical truth is, at best, suspect. But, despite of all this, it’s usually fun and ends with a gripping battle.

            The Trojan War has always presented a problem for filmmakers even by ancient world standards. So much of its mythology has been told as fact that the story itself is remembered today in a cloud of speculation.

            To its credit, Helen of Troy abides by the rules of this murky bubble and refuses to indulge in saturated myth like Jason and the Argonauts but leaves open the possibility of the existence of the Greek gods. Before our eyes it only presents what could be taken for historical fact. An opening narration filling us in on Sparta’s long history of war with Troy, however, commands scholarly authority.

            The attacks from across the sea have left Troy wary, but Paris (Jacques Sernas) is determined to create peace. With his father’s blessing he vows to sail to Sparta and convince King Menelaus (Niall MacGinnis) that Troy wishes to fight no more. En route, however, his boat is hit by a storm (could it be the work of Zeus?) and he is lost at sea, washing up on Sparta’s shore.

This set-up for an adventure, about a hero lost in a hostile land, has long proven effective and as a narrative device may indeed be as old as Greek tragedy. Sure, Sparta was Paris’s destination, but he arrives shaken, unarmed, and in no shape to negotiate peace. By good fortune, he is taken in by a kindly fishing community and instantly wins over Queen Helen (Rossana Podesta), who is disguising herself as a peasant to avoid the ire of her jealous husband Menelaus.

When love blooms between Paris and Helen, the film, irrespective of our familiarity with Homer’s work, seems to be striving for a Romeo and Juliet in the ancient world, but Robert Wise takes the film through some original, albeit short-lived, ideas. In particular, Paris’s exploits in Menelaus’s palace, where a who’s who of legendary names from Achilles to Odysseus have congregated to decide the future of the kingdom, have some of that old pepper sorely missing in many historic dramas.  What transpires is part thriller (Helen, knowing her husband’s true intentions, helps Paris escape the palace) and part schmaltzy tenderness, but it’s fun.

Before hopping on a boat back to Troy, however, Paris seizes Helen and takes her back with him, leaving Sparta planning revenge, and the rest is history…sort of. Still, for a woman who, as the tagline says, “Launched a thousand ships”, Helen herself does very little here. She does her part to help Paris escape her husband’s henchmen (more is done by her maiden played by a young Brigitte Bardot), but she doesn’t even have a say in orchestrating her own escape. Paris pretty much yanks her along and, of course, Sparta sends out the fleet in response, but whose fault is that really?

Be that as it may, the climactic battle scenes are proof of just how much CGI can take away from epics, where a cast of a thousand can be replaced by a single computer image duplicated a thousand times. In his review of Troy (Wolfgang Petersen’s fierce retelling) Roger Ebert lamented this impersonalization, “Better a couple of hundred sweaty warriors than two masses of 50,000 men marching toward one another across a sea of special effects.”

The battles in Helen of Troy are full of the raw primal power only real actors can bring. The violence feels more brutal than anything that could be emulated by digital imagery. Real soldiers seem to be getting speared, arrowed, and burned. It’s more than can be said for the rest of the movie, but the carnage rings true to fact. Even the death of Paris’s brother Hector (Harry Andrews) at the hands of Achilles (Stanley Baker), a moment recreated almost verbatim by Petersen, hits the gut harder here thanks largely to Wise’s dedication to characterization.

Finally, the arrival of the giant wooden horse is the piece any movie about the Trojan War is measured by and Helen of Troy doesn’t disappoint in this regard. Largely by virtue of anticipation, it’s the best handled scene in the movie. It wheels up to the gates of the city where the Trojans, thinking it a gift from the gods, welcome it with joy. It’s a monster of a thing and a mere look at its stature heightens our suspense. We know what the Trojans don’t; their demise awaits within the wooden beast. Wise makes the defeat of Troy all the more harrowing by involving us in its unfolding. One by one, the Spartan warriors spill out of the horse, creeping into the palace walls as the city sleeps. By the time Troy awakes, it’s already too late. Their empire is gone. Wise uses music conservatively, finding silence all the more chilling.

Unfortunately, the movie ends with a reminder that Robert Wise is a Hollywood director first and a director second. It ends with the sourest tasting dusting of sugar. Paris has been killed in battle and Helen, fleeing the fallen city by boat, vows never to forget her wonder boy. It’s a short moment, but Wise’s lapse into the intellect level of the Illustrated Classics, brief as it is, nearly obliterates his previous commendable craftsmanship. Not that a less simplistic ending would have made Helen of Troy a profound or particularly compelling film. Still, it has much to offer over Petersen’s remake. Despite its limitations, at least it leaves us feeling something.