Ulysses

After Troy falls, Odysseus sets out for home and fails to arrive for ten years. The film gives the best-known stops of the epic in order: the cave of the cyclops Polyphemus, the sirens, Circe's island, and finally his own palace on Ithaca full of suitors. Mario Camerini shot it in Italy with an American star as one of the largest productions of its moment. Kirk Douglas plays Odysseus, and Silvana Mangano plays both Penelope and Circe, which is the film's cleverest idea, since the pull of home and the pull of straying wear the same face. The effects are dated now but the cave sequence still works. A great many writers worked on the script and the result turns the epic into an abbreviated adventure. Who it is for: viewers who like fifties Italian epics and mythological adaptation. Who it is not for: anyone looking for fidelity to the text.