The Last Days of Pompeii

SPOILER except the title suggests Vesuvius will erupt, more special effects are deployed as Marcus (Preston Foster) chooses his wounded Christian son (John Wood) over his Roman prefect master (Louis Calhern) and his troops, in the disaster epic from RKO’s King Kong team (Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack), The Last Days Of Pompeii, 1935.

Once virtuous blacksmith turned gladiator turned horse and slave trader Marcus (Preston Foster), still devoted to his adopted son (David Holt), pursuing a prophesy that the greatest man in Judea would come to their aid, visits Pontius Pilate (Basil Rathbone, just introduced, in an atypical hairdo), in The Last Days Of Pompeii, 1935.

We’ve established the city of Pompeii, in what must be the early years Anno Domini, when gladiator wrangler Cleon (William V. Mong) needs an assist from top-billed Preston Foster (introduced here as blacksmith Marcus), Gloria Shea his wife, and Frank Conroy as interested nobleman Gaius, early in RKO’s The Last Days Of Pompeii, 1935.

Make no mistake about your epic scale, as producer Merian C. Cooper and director Ernest B. Schoedsack (of King Kong fame, two years earlier) bank their hefty set and special effects costs, with an unusual prologue attributing the story, and we meet Lucius and Gaius (Marc Loebell, Frank Conroy), opening The Last Days Of Pompeii, 1935.