Samuel Bronston was a man with a vision. He wanted to make movies on a grand scale that would rival anything Hollywood had ever done. He had a passion for history and a knack for producing epic films that featured lavish sets, spectacular battles, and star-studded casts.
He founded Samuel Bronston Productions in 1943 and made several successful films, such as John Paul Jones, King of Kings, and El Cid. He moved his operations to Spain, where he built the largest outdoor film set in the history of cinema, a replica of the Roman Forum that covered 990,000 square feet.
But his ambition proved to be his downfall. In 1964, he released his most ambitious film yet, The Fall of the Roman Empire. The film depicted the decline and corruption of the Roman empire under Commodus, who succeeded his father Marcus Aurelius. The film starred Sophia Loren, Alec Guinness, Christopher Plummer, and Omar Sharif.
The film was a colossal flop. It cost $16 million to make, but only earned $4.8 million at the box office. It also marked the end of Samuel Bronston’s epic productions, which were known for their large-scale spectacles.
The movie’s flop caused Samuel Bronston Productions to go bankrupt. In the resulting legal proceedings, Bronston was charged with perjury for providing a statement that was technically misleading but factually accurate while under oath. When asked if he had a personal bank account in Zurich, he replied that his company had previously held one. He was found guilty and received a one-year prison sentence.
However, his case made it to the U.S. Supreme Court, resulting in the Bronston v. United States ruling, which established that entirely accurate yet potentially deceptive responses cannot lead to prosecution. This decision established a standard for legal testimony that remains pertinent today.
According to Stanford historian Walter Scheidel, the fall of Rome was Europe’s lucky break. He argues that it enabled Europe’s economic and political development by creating room for new forms of political organization that were much more conducive to growth and innovation.
“The end of empire was a major event in human history,” he says. “The Fall of the Roman Empire does a credible job of condensing some of the main historical events that led to Rome’s decline.”
The film represents the epic moviemaking that characterized the golden age of Hollywood. But it also represents a missed opportunity for Samuel Bronston and a turning point for European history.