Spectacle for the People

While Nero fiddled, Rome burnt—or in this case while Charles Laughton lyred and Claudette Colbert laid, the Circus Maximus spectacled.

This was program art for DeMille's 1932 pre-code epic film Sign of the Cross. I must admit that the event program sounds intriguing. The mind reels with images of combat between dwarfs and Amazons. Sorry for those Christians, but at least it was diverting. And wouldn't boxing with spiked gloves make a helluva Pay per View these days?