Steno
Mio figlio Nerone

With the peplum genre cinema about to reach its apex, especially in Italy, during the late '50s and early '60s, it was inevitable that the idea of producing parodies would entice producers and directors. Whether because high-quality comedy always paid off (unlike the serious genre which often turned out to be boring or unintentionally ridiculous), or because having all the necessary means at their disposal (studios, extras, costumes, animals, etc.) made the production costs an acceptable risk.

The great Steno in 1956 filmed what remains the most famous parody title tied to the genre. Taking advantage of the rising star Alberto Sordi and putting an international stellar cast at his service, as well as a large number of popular character actors, he brought the story of Nero to the big screen, avoiding the pitfalls of straightforward biographical narrative and carving from the well-known history of the music-loving and arsonist emperor a plot of farcical characterizations and various sketches.

Gloria Swanson played Agrippina, Nero's mother. The almost debuting Brigitte Bardot played the legendary Poppea. Sordi, with curly and fiery hair, hammed it up unrestrainedly among these two leading ladies. Finding himself comfortable in a cinematic habitat that probably wasn't congenial to him. Especially since Swanson, who just a few years before had won the Golden Globe and had come close to the Oscar with Sunset Boulevard, showed no aptitude - on set - in sustaining that role. She later declared that she accepted that poor experience only to act alongside Vittorio De Sica.

De Sica, playing the philosopher Seneca, represented the true cornerstone of the cast, with an over-the-top performance perfect for the film, at the center of the most comic and successful sequences. Such as the one with the letter written to Lucillio in which he awkwardly declared that Nero sings like a dog (an anthological moment).

The stormy relationship between the actors, especially between Swanson and Bardot, didn't prevent Steno from achieving a good result, particularly regarding the accuracy of the staging and a script that was even too refined for the satire of a genre that often had little refinement. Swanson, of course, disowned the film, saying it was one of the worst things she had ever shot. Sordi likewise considered Mio figlio Nerone one of his less beautiful films for a long time; and it is said that at the premiere at the Venice Festival, he got up halfway through the screening and left.

With hindsight, if we talk about peplum, it is worth revisiting this film rather than many others produced in the same years. Although sometimes tinged with unintentional humor and possibly interesting from a cinephile perspective, they neither have the verve nor the caliber of Steno's work.