As for the Marx's, Chico plays a naysayer to Columbus' voyage, Harpo is a harp-playing Sir Isaac Newton and (in the movie's only legitimately amusing sequence) Groucho is a wisecracking pilgrim who buys Manhattan from the Indians. Forty-something Hedy Lamarr turns up as the teenaged Joan of Arc, Cesar Romero is a Spaniard visiting Queen Elizabeth (Agnes Moorehead), awhile a way-too-intense Dennis Hopper is a method-acting Napoleon. Amidst moments by Helen of Troy, Moses, Marie Antoinette, and DeVinci, we also get John Carradine as an Egyptian pharaoh, Virginia Mayo playing Cleopatra with all the subtlety of Bettie Page in front of the Camera Club, and drunken Nero (Peter Lorre!) hosting a depraved, bongo-fueled interpretive dance. To state their opposing cases, Price and Colman wander throughout history, demonstrating the pros and cons of mankind, as this framework unleashes a torrent of embarrassed supporting actors.

Scratch' (dapper Vincent Price) argues that we should all be allowed to blow ourselves to Hell. Taking the side of us lowly homo sapiens is Ronald Colman as 'The Spirit of Man,' while the devilish 'Mr.

When mankind announces the invention of the 'Super H-Bomb,' Heaven convenes an outer space tribunal (atop a cloud, of course) to figure out if the human race is worth saving. Colorful and idiotic, it's a one-of-a-kind fiasco, yet what other movie is going to combine Vincent Price, Dennis Hopper and The Marx Brothers?! Directed by Irwin Allen, years before he became the disaster-blockbuster king with THE TOWERING INFERNO and THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE, this project is his biggest disaster of 'em all.

Long considered one of the most misguided Hollywood epics of all time, this belabored all-star fantasy actually exceeds its rotten-reputation.

Towering inferno torrent