"Caligula... the story never told") is a 1982 historical exploitation film starring David Brandon and Laura Gemser.
[3] The plot deals with the last days of the deviant and murderous Roman emperor Caligula, his sumptuous feasts, orgies, and the various assassination attempts on his life.
At its core, the film develops an ill-fated romance between the emperor and an Egyptian slave seeking revenge for her friend's death.
The Untold Story was released in Italy and in other European countries in both theaters and on home video in several different softcore and hardcore versions.
Roman Emperor Gaius Caesar Caligula, alone in his bed, is plagued by nightmares in which a man, his head covered in a helmet, tries to shoot him with an arrow.
To finance the project, Caligula announces he will auction off all his belongings at a banquet with beautiful women and costly admission.
"Caligula... the other story"), by whom it was rejected the first and second time (March 20 and May 21): It contained too many scenes merging sexual and physical violence with reiterated display of mutilations, the remainder of the runtime being for a large part taken up by orgies so that even cuts could not remove the "negative characteristics" in the eyes of the censors.
[5] On October 19, 1982 the production company "Cinema 80" asked for a revision for a re-edited version under the title Caligola... la storia mai raccontata, passed on December 1, 1982.
[5] Nonetheless, a version of the first and longer Italian cut was released in Italy on home video, still bearing the title Caligola... l'altra storia.
[5] In Spain, a soft-core version was theatrically released as Caligula 3, la historia jamás contada, with 231,236 spectators and a box-office gross of 264,977 euros.
The Untold Story was released on Italian home video, and on VHS, in its softcore versions by Golfo Azzurro, Videogroup, and Shendene & Moizzi.
[5] It includes the following additional scenes: The hardcore cut was first distributed on home video by "Movie Time" in the Netherlands on VHS in an abbreviated form, dubbed in English with Dutch subtitles.
[8] In France, P. Mérigeau thought that apart from some habitually horrific scenes (such as tongues cut off, a prostitute coupling with a horse, a newborn child thrown against a wall), there was an absolute void.
The Untold Story "is not as slick as Gore Vidal's Caligula" and says that "the lack of gloss actually benefits the film, putting the subject matter in a very suitable light" and giving more of an impression of a "gritty documentation" compared with the "pretentious and almost glorifying" way in which the earlier film presented its subject matter.
[10] Stine also mentions the "gratuitous gore" - in particular the "tongue-sawing sequence" and "the poor chap who gets impaled with a spear in a manner that makes suppositories look positively quaint".
[10] In his D'Amato monograph published in 2004, Gordiano Lupi calls the film "crazy and perverse" as well as "visionary in the right place".
[11] Furthermore, he praises the film's historical reconstruction and its set design, pointing out the yellow tinge of the cinematography evoking the decadent atmosphere of the late [sic] Roman Empire.
[12] In his book on D'Amato published in 2014, Antonio Tentori characterises the film as fragmentary due to censorship, but that it is still apparent that it is dedicated to a bizarre and perverse type of eroticism.
[14][12] Generally viewing the acting in a favorable light, Lupi further asserts that Laura Gemser too here delivered one of the most inspired performances of her career.