Helen of Troy: Rating: 1 stars

If your image of history’s most infamous beauty involves a 1950s sweater bra, then this is the movie for you.

Helen of Troy (1956)
1956 · UR · Drama
Reviewed May 25, 2007

The Iliad gets a mid-century makeover here, with Rosanna Podesta looking appropriately Greek as Helen, and with Jacques Sernas looking inappropriately gay as her paramous Paris. I’ve heard this billed as the worst movie of all time, and while I have some mild dispute with that moniker (Lady in the Water is definitely worse), I certainly couldn’t call it good. And yet this production somehow lacks even the kitschy fun of such epic cheese as Ben-Hur or The Ten Commandments. There’s the requisite cast of hundreds, of course, but the “epic” battle scenes, which were probably a huge selling point when this movie was originally released, are so obviously taking place in a California back lot that it’s almost more depressing than amusing. Is it worth watching all 2.5 hours? Not really. But it is worth a look-see for those excellent skirts — and I do mean the ones on the men. I saw more butt in this old film than I’ve seen in any recent modern film. Were the censors asleep, or what?