The Robe (1953)
Country: US
Technical: col/scope 135m
Director: Henry Koster
Cast: Richard Burton, Jean Simmons, Michael Rennie, Victor Mature, Jay Robinson, Torin Thatcher, Richard Boone
Synopsis:
A Roman tribune is sent to Palestine, where his duties include overseeing the crucifixion of a certain Jewish troublemaker. Unaccountably stricken with remorse, he ascribes his state of mind to the robe which his Greek slave recovers from the place of execution; however, his mission to destroy the robe and report on the activities of the new Christians results instead in his conversion to the faith and his own persecution as an enemy of the state by the new emperor, Caligula.
Review:
Fox's first Cinemascope production set the seal on the renaissance of the biblical epic begun earlier in the decade by Samson and Delilah and Quo Vadis? It is not only an appealingly oblique treatment of the gospel, with a policy of showcasing the Christ's reflected glory in the faces of the cast, rather in the manner of Wyler's Ben-Hur later, but as such has a more compelling three-act structure to follow. The decors and Technicolor cinematography are awash with gorgeous blues and golds, and there are vivid stagings of the action in the village of Cana and on the banks of the Tiber; clearly, not a cent had been spared on this prestige picture. The acting yields more mixed pleasures: Burton is somewhat overripe at times, though no more than the advocacy of Newman's score and the effects department's thunderstorms in the film's purple passages; Simmons has never been lovelier than here; Mature does a decent job of Demetrius, enough to be asked back for the sequel, and Boone is an affectingly dazed Pilate; and what can one say of Robinson's high-camp portrayal of 'Little Boots' than that it is at least entertaining?
Country: US
Technical: col/scope 135m
Director: Henry Koster
Cast: Richard Burton, Jean Simmons, Michael Rennie, Victor Mature, Jay Robinson, Torin Thatcher, Richard Boone
Synopsis:
A Roman tribune is sent to Palestine, where his duties include overseeing the crucifixion of a certain Jewish troublemaker. Unaccountably stricken with remorse, he ascribes his state of mind to the robe which his Greek slave recovers from the place of execution; however, his mission to destroy the robe and report on the activities of the new Christians results instead in his conversion to the faith and his own persecution as an enemy of the state by the new emperor, Caligula.
Review:
Fox's first Cinemascope production set the seal on the renaissance of the biblical epic begun earlier in the decade by Samson and Delilah and Quo Vadis? It is not only an appealingly oblique treatment of the gospel, with a policy of showcasing the Christ's reflected glory in the faces of the cast, rather in the manner of Wyler's Ben-Hur later, but as such has a more compelling three-act structure to follow. The decors and Technicolor cinematography are awash with gorgeous blues and golds, and there are vivid stagings of the action in the village of Cana and on the banks of the Tiber; clearly, not a cent had been spared on this prestige picture. The acting yields more mixed pleasures: Burton is somewhat overripe at times, though no more than the advocacy of Newman's score and the effects department's thunderstorms in the film's purple passages; Simmons has never been lovelier than here; Mature does a decent job of Demetrius, enough to be asked back for the sequel, and Boone is an affectingly dazed Pilate; and what can one say of Robinson's high-camp portrayal of 'Little Boots' than that it is at least entertaining?
Country: US
Technical: col/scope 135m
Director: Henry Koster
Cast: Richard Burton, Jean Simmons, Michael Rennie, Victor Mature, Jay Robinson, Torin Thatcher, Richard Boone
Synopsis:
A Roman tribune is sent to Palestine, where his duties include overseeing the crucifixion of a certain Jewish troublemaker. Unaccountably stricken with remorse, he ascribes his state of mind to the robe which his Greek slave recovers from the place of execution; however, his mission to destroy the robe and report on the activities of the new Christians results instead in his conversion to the faith and his own persecution as an enemy of the state by the new emperor, Caligula.
Review:
Fox's first Cinemascope production set the seal on the renaissance of the biblical epic begun earlier in the decade by Samson and Delilah and Quo Vadis? It is not only an appealingly oblique treatment of the gospel, with a policy of showcasing the Christ's reflected glory in the faces of the cast, rather in the manner of Wyler's Ben-Hur later, but as such has a more compelling three-act structure to follow. The decors and Technicolor cinematography are awash with gorgeous blues and golds, and there are vivid stagings of the action in the village of Cana and on the banks of the Tiber; clearly, not a cent had been spared on this prestige picture. The acting yields more mixed pleasures: Burton is somewhat overripe at times, though no more than the advocacy of Newman's score and the effects department's thunderstorms in the film's purple passages; Simmons has never been lovelier than here; Mature does a decent job of Demetrius, enough to be asked back for the sequel, and Boone is an affectingly dazed Pilate; and what can one say of Robinson's high-camp portrayal of 'Little Boots' than that it is at least entertaining?