We started, instead, by viewing an Italian production from 1954, starring a pre-Spartacus Kirk Douglas. It's predictably forgettable -- bad dubbing, wooden dialogue, low-budget sets, and lots of dubious plot modifications. As the New York Times review snarkily observed upon its release, "Franco Interlenghi is vapid as the son Telemachus, and Anthony Quinn is virtually a nobody as one of the suitors who hang around. Rossana Podesta is pretty as the Phaeacian princess whom Ulysses almost weds, but her personality and performance are on a par with those of the Goldwyn girls."
One innovation by the screenwriters (including Ben Hecht!) was to conflate the roles of Circe and Calypso. This seductive sorceress, played by Silvana Mangano (Dino de Laurentiis' wife), was also double cast as Ulysses' long-enduring Penelope. Here's their first encounter. Don't know whether that resemblance between these women makes Ulysses more or less culpable for his long sojourn with divine paramours before returning to Ithaca.
