RetroClips

Cabiria was the era's defining spectacle picture, an internationally distributed sensation that directly shaped D.W. Griffith's Intolerance and set the template for every 'cast of thousands' epic that followed. Director Giovanni Pastrone staged Hannibal's crossing of the Alps with real elephants and hundreds of extras on an actual mountainside rather than a studio backlot, and the film's title cards were reportedly the first to credit a poet, Gabriele D'Annunzio, giving the production literary prestige it used to market itself worldwide. It also introduced Maciste, one of cinema's first recurring action heroes, who went on to star in dozens of his own films.