a ·
b ·
c ·
d ·
e ·
f ·
g ·
h ·
i ·
j ·
k ·
l ·
m ·
n ·
o ·
p ·
q ·
r ·
s ·
t ·
u ·
v ·
w ·
x ·
y ·
z ·
home
KING OF KINGS
"The chair will have to wait until I return!"
Nothing quite brings to mind the wages of Sin, the dangers of Heresy and the evil of Blasphemy as the Hollywood Biblical Epic. In actual fact where Tinseltown has often played fast and loose with historical fact over and over again (USA captures Enigma, anyone?) when it comes to the stories of the Bible suddenly things are different. A special feature was shown at the outset of THE TEN COMMANDMENTS which demonstrated that not only was the story based on the books of Genesis, Exodus etc and historians such as Josephus, but that the stone tablets used in the film were actually cut from the stone of Mount Sinai and written in Aramaic (which we reckon would probably nowadays involve a copyright infringement notice from Mel Gibson). One reason for this may be that for sheer wild fantasy and outrageous flights of fancy, no script writer can match the likes of sticks turning into snakes and the ten plagues of Egypt. Honestly, if they were written in a book you wouldn't believe them! Blasphemy aside, studios took pride in ensuring that not only were their films big in scale but that they were equally big on fact... or at least literalism; whichever suits your point of view.
The aforementioned THE TEN COMMANDMENTS might still be reasonably considered the best of the lot, stuffed to the gills as it is with spectacle (the Exodus, the parting of the Red Sea, the burning bush), stars (Charlton 'cold dead hands' Heston, Vincent 'strawberry jam' Price, Edward G 'mnaaaaa!' Robinson and Cedric 'Watson's dad' Hardwicke) and spectacular dialogue ("Where's your Messiah now?" "Dance, you straw dogs!" "Water before love, my dear!"). In fact, the three things every great epic requires. These three also come together in great fashion in the seminal BEN HUR which, despite not being nearly as good as THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, gets all the attention. Not really tied down to any season of the year anymore The Hur serves to fill ten hours or so of any odd Saturday afternoon schedule. In fact, it's easy to forget that The Hur has anything to do with religion at all since the scenes most people do remember - the chariot race and the sea battle - don't really make it that pertinent a subject. Still, religious it is and also notable for the fact that the central character and Big Star, Charlton 'cold, dead hands' Heston again, gives the least impressive performance in the film. The honours go mostly to Jack 'Zulu' Hawkins and especially the best in show Hugh 'I got an Oscar for this, you know' Griffiths and Heston is eclipsed by almost everyone he appears with other than the horses.
Of the other Old Testament features not many make the grade with SOLOMON AND SHEBA a particular crappy effort. Yul Brynner and Gina Lollobrigida are rubbish and only George 'art and homos' Sanders is worth watching. That's not entirely true, since if you can bear to hang on 'til the end there's the brilliant battle scene where Solomon defeats the Hammerites (or whoever) by flashing their shields in their faces. Never thought of that at El Alamein, did they? SAMSON AND DELILAH is equally poor with a later entry into this esteemed company the film which probably finished off the Old Testament epic as a viable proposition, KING DAVID starring Richard 'look down and sigh' Gere. Even the quite remarkable performance of Edward Woodward couldn't save this load of old cobblers from the sledgehammer touch of Gere and his turn as the eponymous King of Israel though and we shall never see their like again.
With Genesis, Exodus and all that old news in Hollywood it was time to look to the Good News instead and there are films aplenty that concern that crazy bunch of guys Mathew, Mark, Luke and John and their gospels. First out of the trap here is ANDROCLES AND THE LION which is a bit of a red herring really since it's not really a Bible story at all but an adaptation of a GBS play. But it starred the great Victor Mature and Robert 'ar, Jim lad!' Newton and we like it 'cos it reminds us of the version that used to be on schools programmes years ago and starred Billy Connolly before he impaired his acting ability by climbing right up his own arse and disappearing. Anyway, the first real entry is THE ROBE from 1953, the early Christian epic which featured Richard 'Pazuzu' Burton being acted off the screen by half a yard of red woolly blanket. It did however also star Creamguide (films) favourite Victor Mature as Demetrius giving the performance of his life tussling with big cuddly lions. Also on show is Jay Robinson the actor who played Caligula so brilliantly (like a sort of psychotic Kenneth Williams) but whose name no-one ever remembers.
THE ROBE is still seen at Easter and such fairly regularly but more esoterically scheduled is its sequel, the brilliant DEMETRIUS AND THE GLADIATORS again starring Mature as our eponymous Christian hero. What's great about this is that not only does it disprove the theory that epics about the life of Christ can't really have sequels (and many hopeful souls are still waiting for the long-awaited for raw material for some of those) but that it begins with scenes from its predecessor THE ROBE for the benefit of those few Stone Age Amazonians who haven't seen it yet. DEMETRIUS also features Anne 'Brookswife' Bancroft and Nosher Powell as a gladiator, so you can see what Mature was up against.
Next in our pantomime walk down of propheteering comes the oft-screened KING OF KINGS from 1961. Not the most memorable of these things it does benefit from narration by Ray Bradbury and Orson Welles but is lumbered with being - as many of these are - exceptionally long. 2 hours and 41 minutes long to be precise. Despite it not being the most ubiquitous version of the story it does feature performances that stick in the mind and Jeffrey Hunter as Jesus remains many people's enduring image of Him. Rip 'Artie' Torn and Siobhan 'he had it out already' McKenna are also memorable as Judas and Mary and it all also looks terribly good.
More famous from 1965 is THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD and the version we reckon has probably been seen most often. Max von 'Kremlin Letter' Sydow is very good as the lead but it's the supporting players that really mark this version out especially Telly Savalas as Pontius Pilate. No hand wringing pinko this Pilate, Kojak's in charge here as you'd imagine but it's a particularly moving and convincing performance from Big Joe. Jose 'Cockleshell Heroes' Ferrer is excellent as Herod Antipas, Roddy 'Caesar' McDowell is here as Matthew, Angela 'Excitement, She Wrote!' Lansbury is Claudia, Martin Landau is Caiaphas, Sidney Poitier is Simon of Cyrene, Claude Raines is a right bastard as King Herod and, famously, John Wayne is the centurion by the Cross who fulfils the aforementioned criteria for a great epic film with the immortal lines; "Truly, he was the son of Gahd!" This is also a loooong film and rather absorbing. Certainly when as puppies we were sat down to watch this by the folks on Good Friday, by the time the last, unavoidably rather schmaltzy, view of Max happily ascending into heaven came round and we were forced to giggle a bit we always a got row from our Mum who now viewed the man we knew was really Emperor Ming as a religious relic and beyond ridicule.
THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD was really the last really big version of, erm, the greatest story ever told to hit the screens but there have been others. In 1973 there came of course JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR a film that divides people across very strict lines. We happen to think it's shit. Other people don't and really like it but of course, they're wrong. It's shit. Meanwhile, a little further down the road came THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST this time starring Willem Dafoe as yer man. Harvey Keitel is the other big character here, playing as he does Judas, but he's rubbish quite frankly and there are other slightly odd bits of casting, like Irvin Kershner - the man who directed The Empire Strikes Back - as Zebedee, David Bowie as Pontius Pilate and Harry Dean Stanton as probably the scrawniest Paul on film. Scorcese of course took pelters for his film since it was concerned with a conjecture of what Christ might have been thinking about as he was crucified (personally we reckon he might have been a little preoccupied to think of much at all) and the scene specifically when he was shown bedding Mary Magdalene. What concerned us rather more was the scene where he took his heart out and waved it around in a rather too graphic depiction of those photos you see in Christian bookshop windows.
Of course, controversy over films of the Passion are all the rage now what with little Mel Gibson's version of that very same thing packing them in. Curiously Gibson is getting heat for just the very opposite reason Marty did, namely that Mad Max's version is too literal a reproduction of the source material. You can't win, eh? Just read the book, as every 'wit' seems intent on telling us this weather. Our own advice is to watch whatever version is on telly this Good Friday, east a couple of eggs, drop some change into the Sally Army's tins (or whoever) in the High Street and live in respectful harmony with people of all creeds and nations.
a · b · c · d · e · f · g · h · i · j · k · l · m · n · o · p · q · r · s · t · u · v · w · x · y · z · home
