Masada
Overview
Masada is an American historical drama television miniseries that aired on ABC in April 1981. Advertised by the network as an 'ABC Novel for Television', the screenplay by Joel Oliansky is based on Ernest Gann's 1971 novel The Antagonists. The series is a dramatization of the historical siege of the Masada citadel in Roman Palestine by legions of the Roman Empire in AD 73. A siege that ended when the Roman armies entered the fortress, only to discover the mass suicide by the Jewish defenders when defeat became imminent.
Cast
Peter O'Toole
General Cornelius Flavius Silva
Peter Strauss
Eleazar ben Yair
Barbara Carrera
Sheva
Alan Feinstein
Aaron
Giulia Pagano
Miriam
Anthony Quayle
Rubrius Gallus
Paul L. Smith
Gideon
David Warner
Senator Pomponius Falco
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CinemaSerf
I remember watching this mini-series on the BBC and throughly enjoying every minute (I was 14!). It marries historical fact, legend and drama creating a cracking action adventure that sees nine hundred Jewish people take refuge in the eponymous and impregnable mountain fortress, fleeing the brutal regime of the Vespasianic legions under the command of Peter O'Toole's ("Silva"). The other principal casting maybe isn't the best - Peter Strauss didn't work for me at all and the seriously wooden Barbara Carrera also stretches the imagination just a tad, but the pace of the story builds well as the besieging Romans face all the desert environment and the Jewish freedom fighters can throw at them. There is an inevitability about it - the engineering prowess of the army soon starts to sound a death knell for the brave souls gathered above, and there are some strikingly brutal examples of just how ruthless the occupying forces could be - a whole new set of uses for catapults, for example. A solid cast including Sir Anthony Quayle, David Warner and Dennis Quilley give the proceedings extra gravitas and O'Toole manages to resist any temptation to ham it up delivering a strong, considered, performance as the reasonably minded general/governor who has long since tired of fighting never ending wars. It takes 6½ hours, give or take recaps etc., which might explain why it is rarely seen nowadays, but it is a taut and compelling grand scale historical epic that is well worth sticking through (and visiting should you ever get the opportunity).
