Sign of the Pagan

An immensely interesting though finally unsuccessful film. Sirk's hopes of transforming the project into a version of Marlowe's Tamburlaine the Great were thwarted by Universal. However, the film's historical dimension - Attila the Hun's attempt to destroy the Roman Empire, with Palance as Attila, and Chandler as Rome's would-be Christian defender - together with Sirk's unusually hysterical conception of the central character, throw a suggestive light on the seemingly slight reverberations of his better-known domestic melodramas.