Caligula came to power following the death of his grandfather, Emperor Tiberius (Peter O'Toole), murdered jointly by Caligula and his trusted ally, the Praetorian Prefect, Macro (Guido Mannari). As one would come to expect, this film centers on the short reign of Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus or better known as Caligula (Malcolm McDowell), the third emperor of Rome, who ruled from 37 AD until 41 AD. These added scenes include a girl-on-girl lesbian tryst that was edited in between the m¿nage trois scene involving McDowell, Mirren and Teresa Ann Savoy and some modern looking-and totally out of place-hardcore material that was added to the infamous bordello scene towards the end of the film. Guccione even went as far as to re-shoot some graphic porn material and spliced that into the final version. Unhappy with director Tinto Brass' (who had also directed the equally explicit film Salon Kitty) original vision of the film, Guccione fired Brass and brought in other film editors like Giancarlo Lui, Russell Lloyd and Nino Baragli to edit multiple versions of the film, ultimately butchering the film's original Vidal screenplay beyond comprehension or repair. In post-production, Caligula ran into plenty of problems and had seen repeated edits and re-edits even before it was released. Quite unimaginable! In fact, as McDowell revealed in his audio commentary, the only reason that he first got involved with Caligula was because of Gore Vidal's immense reputation as a writer. To top it all off, in the midst of such insolence and decadence on screen, we have award-winning actors like Malcolm McDowell, Helen Mirren, Peter O'Toole and John Gielgud plying their ware alongside Guccione's harem of sexy Penthouse Pets. Back in the '70s, never would one imagine seeing the inherently violent and gritty side of Rome and the sexually explicit scenes of unbridled debauchery as depicted in Caligula. When one thinks of the typical Hollywood swords-and-sandals epic, one would first picture the massive and elaborate sets and then the elegance and civility of the many characters found in such films as Cleopatra or The Robe.
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