"Sign of the Cross is a wildly extravagant fantasia on the pomp, lust, andcircumstance of Nero's Rome. As an emperor throwing tantrums on silken pillows, Charles Laughton stealsthe show with a perverse, jellied personification of pouting infantilism. Claudette Colbert, warming up forthe 1934 Cleopatra, is not far behind as Poppaea, whether barely submerged in ass's milk or serving ashostess for the imperial orgies. Just a few years before the censors began curbing outr?tastes, DeMillewas hitting his pop-epi stride in the sound era. Here he was able to have his pagans and eat his Christianstoo..." (Andrew Sarris, Tom Allen, Village Voice). "DeMille...resisted every entreaty from his usual alliesin the religious community to remove (a dance with lesbian overtones) from the film. What the church couldnot accomplish the Breen Office and a toughened Production Code could, however; when The Sign of theCross was reissued in 1944 the dance and much of the rest of the sex and sadism (i.e. the gruesome torturescenes) were cut out. However, (our new print is) produced from DeMille's personal copy of the original124-minute road show version released in 1932" (UCLA Film and Television Archive).