A rascally entry in the genealogy of Biblical Epics. A light-hearted farce about Christian martyrdom, from Poverty Row studio RKO — hardly epic, not even in color, and based on a play by that old heathen, George Bernard Shaw. Yet here are Victor Mature and Jean Simmons, King (or at least Prince) and Queen of Biblical Epics, plus John Hoyt, from the stock company of Roman Patricians. Here also is Alan Young, Mr. Ed's Wiiiiilber, as Androcles, animal lover, fool — and Christian. With the Romans rounding up lion-fodder, he and his shrewish wife Megaera (Elsa Lanchester) take to the woods, where they run into a lion. As in Aesop's fable, Androcles pulls a thorn from the lion's foot, and the good deed is returned later — in the Coliseum. Meanwhile, the giggly attitude of the martyrs to their fate, and the arch attitude of the film toward the martyrs and their faith, makes you wonder if the Christians are being laughed with or at. Given Shaw's belief that Christ blew it by submitting to martyrdom rather than escaping and becoming a statesman who might have done some good in the world, this is hardly the inspirational tale it may seem on the surface. But Androcles injects a welcome note of honest questioning into proceedings notorious for sickeningly-sweet false religiosity. The debate pro and con for martyrdom, and varied reactions to impending doom, give a whiff of how much "a little pinch of incense" — i.e. sacrificing to Caesar — costs.

The Robe  (1953)
Directed by Henry Koster
Screenplay by Phillip Dunne, from the novel by Lloyd C. Douglas
Richard Burton (Marcellus), Gene Simmons (Diana), Victor Mature (Demetrius) Jay Robinson (Caligula)

   A HUGE deal when it premiered, The Robe remained an All-Time Box-office Champ for years. But viewed in hindsight, the film may tend to come off as what it pretty much was — a Suitably Large Subject drafted to showcase the new Cinemascope process. Television was devastating the comfortable monopoly Hollywood had enjoyed since the beginning of the industry. Widescreen seemed a way to lure people away from their TVs and back to the movie house. The very first widescreen image hints at the true glory of Cinemascope: Roman gladiators about to die, saluting the Emperor.

As a matter of fact, the Imperial viewpoint makes for an excellent perspective on the Gospel and its revolutionary impact, perhaps even moreso than more traditional tellings of the story. For all the widescreen spectacle, however, the power of Rome depends here almost entirely on the charisma of Richard Burton. His authority as Tribune Marcellus Gallio is so compelling that the film looks stronger than it really is, or at least until other a few smaller-than-life characters, and Burton's own surrender of his Roman authority, reveal The Robe descends too often to the level of a melodramatic cartoon. Moments, for example, like the disciple's introduction of himself — "My name is… Judas" — followed by a lightning strike are embarrassingly over the top.

After establishing the Imperial context so effectively, the action comes to revolve in large measure around Burton's hammy breakdowns and syrupy sermons. The full impact of the astonishing struggle unfolding between Christ and Caesar is upstaged by the overwrought Marcellus, whose obsession with the garment of the man he crucified comes off less as a true conversion than as the bewitchment he is accused of. Only Jay Robinson's performance is even further over-the-top, as a shrieking, fey Caligula. The chorus of Hallelujahs as Marcellus and his beloved Lady Diana walk to martyrdom against a backdrop of clouds makes at best a disappointing substitute for a genuine dramatic transformation, and, at worst, a dubious case for the faith. From a series of religious novels by a Congregationalist pastor, The Robe went on to spawn two film sequels.

Demetrius and the Gladiators  (1954)
Directed by Delmer Daves
Screenplay by Phillip Dunne, based on characters from the novel The Robe by Lloyd C. Douglas
Victor Mature (Demetrius), Susan Hayward (Messalina), Ernest Borgnine (Strabo), Jay Robinson (Caligula)

   This sequel to The Robe, likewise shot in Cinemascope was much less ballyhooed but may have actually been the better film. For one thing, the absence of Richard Burton makes the rest of the cast look better. And there's a sense that all the sacred history and sermonizing has been taken care of, and now the characters can concentrate on a real story. A drawback is there's more of Jay Robinson's Caligula, Dana Carvey as Bond villian. But the conflict between Christ and Caesar is sharpened into the central dilemma. After witnessing the martyrdom of Tribune Gallio, Caligula is obsessed with finding and using the Robe of Christ as a weapon — in the same way the Nazis sought the power of the Lost Ark in Raiders. The search leads to the Christian community of which Gallio's former slave is a part. Demetrius is arrested and sent to gladiator school, where his faith is put to the test. At first he refuses to fight, but extenuating factors complicate things, and he is caught between the power of Rome and the power of love. Corny, but a film that understands the core issues.

Ben Hur  (1959)
Directed by William Wyler
Screenplay by Ken Tunberg, et al.
Charleton Heston (Ben Hur), Stephen Boyd (Tribune Messala), Jack Hawkins (Quintus Arrius)

   The most honored Hollywood blockbuster before James Cameron's Titanic was this third movie version of Ben Hur. The film set the record for eleven Oscars, sweeping all the big ones including a Best Actor award for Charlton Heston who, despite some typically agonized emoting, is here at the top of his form. Certainly the best of the 1950s cycle of Biblical Epics, Ben Hur opens with its wide screen filled with the requisite cast of thousands, Jews returning home to be taxed, and marching Roman legions stretching to the horizon. Indeed, if you're looking for the Power of Rome depicted effectively onscreen, and not vested in the performance of a single actor, then Ben Hur is where cinematic images of empire reach almost Nuremberg Rally pitch.

The sense of Imperial domination is not, however, channeled immediately into direct conflict with Christ, but rather diffuses somewhat in the variety of motives embodied in a struggle between childhood friends. Judah Ben Hur is an upper class Jew whose old friend Messala has come home to Jerusalem as commander of the Roman garrison. Their friendship becomes suddenly weighted by the suffocating pressure to bend the knee to Empire.. As in The Ten Commandments, Heston's character chooses loyalty to his own people, even if it means rejecting princely power, which leads in both films to humiliation but ultimate triumph. When he is falsely accused of trying to kill the Roman governor, Judah is sent by Messala to the galleys. He not only survives, but comes out on top — as the adopted son of a Roman consul. Eventually returning home, Judah is respected and powerful, and a master charioteer to boot. Messala, of course, also turns out to also be a charioteer, and the action builds to the famous set piece showdown which is here nearly as long as the entire 1907 version of the film.

Director William Wyler was one of a multitude of assistant directors on the spectacular chariot race sequence of the 1925 version of the film. While one never got the idea that Wyler sat around dreaming his whole career of having his own crack at this story, the outrageous scale of that earlier production must surely have left some permanent in his psyche, some notion of a personal challenge. Yet it may actually be argued that Wyler's version of the sea battle and chariot races only equalled, but did not surpass, his old boss's very creditable staging. There can be no question that the thunder of hoofbeats and roar of the crowd in this sound version of the chariot race help make it one of the most unforgettable sequences in movie spectacle history. Charlton Heston is an epic set-piece himself, always in danger of going over-the-top, but restrained here by Wyler for an Oscar-winning performance. Thus, unlike many a veteran director whose effort to crown their career with a Biblical epic in the 50s and 60s ended badly, Wyler pulls off an effort more than commensurate with the material. Ironically, Ben Hur put MGM on the map in 1925, and saved the studio from near-bankruptcy in 1959.

King of Kings  (1961)
Directed by Nicholas Ray
Screenplay by Phillip Yordan
Jeffrey Hunter (Jesus), Siobhan McKenna (Mary), Hurd Hatfield (Pilate), Ron Randell (Lucius)

   This film is a remake only in the sense of using the same name as DeMille's 1927 silent film, and ostensibly the same source material. But the film is hardly improved by having sound, as the actors' half-hearted performances — to go along with half-hearted direction — might have played better silently, including the most remarkably somnambulant John the Baptist of the genre. Critics dubbed this movie "I Was a Teenage Jesus," in reference to the young teen-idolish star Jeffrey Hunter (who was actually about the exact right age for the part) and a director who specialized in adolescent angst, from Johnny Guitar to Rebel Without a Cause. The material is shaped so as to downplay the supernatural aspects and position Christ as a prophet of non-violence, an agenda made explicit in the conversation between Herod and the Roman soldier, Lucius, who has been sent to observe the Galilean preacher and report. "He spoke on peace, love and the brotherhood of man," says Lucius. "Is that all?" asks Herod. "That is all." The narration is by an uncredited Ray Bradbury, a science fiction writer who is both well-respected but also quite capable of purple prose, here delivered in the sonorous voice of Orson Welles. The faux King James style seems innocuously corny until you realize that this bogus Scriptural authority is actually covering changes in the story. And while it's true that all adaptations compress, reshape or flesh-out the material, poetic license eventually crosses the line into just plain getting the story wrong.

Perhaps it could be argued that allowing Lucius to act as Jesus's advocate at his trial is a creative way of externalizing Pilate's own internal debate. It seems categorically different when Christ on the Cross says, "Woman, behold your son" here in reference to himself, rather than the Apostle John as in the original. Or when Christ cites non-existent Scriptures, like "There is only one truth and it is written in the commandments: Be true to God." Nothing worth protesting too vehemently, except a casual attitude toward the material that borders on contempt, and a sense that the filmmakers are confident the suckers will buy anything so long as they fade up those angelic "oohoohoohs" on Miklós Rózsa's soundtrack. One can see why Monty Python's satire of the Gospel takes aim at how easily people get suckered by prophets. Indeed, it seems clear this King of Kings was a key source for their Life of Brian. During the Sermon on the Mount scene, with its overabundance of extras, one can't help but imagine somebody in the back shouting, "I think he said 'cheese makers'. There may be a sense in which all screen Gospels, like Brian, aren't really about Jesus but somebody mistaken for him: this one perhaps more than most.

Barabbas  (1962)
Directed by Richard Fleischer
Screenplay by Nigel Baclchin, Diego Fabbri, et al, based on a novel by Pär Lagerkvist
Anthony Quinn (Barabbas), Anthony Kennedy (Pontius Pilate)

   From a novel by a Nobel Prize -winning Swedish author, and produced by Italian impresario Dino de Laurentus as a classic Biblical spectacle, the overblown style of this film is not helped by the post-dubbed dialogue, which gives it a bit of a Godzilla movie feel. But it has its moments. After Jesus is given the cross meant for him, a Christ-haunted rabble-rouser named Barabbas continues to cheat death — from the Roman sulpher mines to the gladiatorial contents — until his fate finally catches up to him. Unlike other tellings of the Barabbas story that make him out to be a ideological zealot, this one is played as a sort of Jewish Zorba by Anthony Quinn, whose labored performace looks much better contrasted with young Jack Palance's manic Roman nasty. One senses a smarter novel may be lurking under there somewhere, and the hard-to-find Swedish version of this film (filmed a decade earlier by one of Ingmar Bergman's mentors, Alf Sjöberg) may be worth tracking down. But apart from some wild screeches on the sound track during the Passion sequence, there's really no significant departures from the Hollywood Biblical Epic style that Monty Python would satirize down the road. The extended sequence of Jerusalem in darkness during the Crucifixion is said to have involved a real solar eclipse of which the director took advantage. And despite some corny, preachy dialogue, the bold testimony for Christ by Barabbas's fellow gladiator Sahek gives us a glimpse of what it must have been like for as the subversive message of love and sacrifice spread in the Roman underground, and what it meant (and cost) to embrace it in a culture based on worship of power and glory.

The Greatest Story Ever Told  (1965)
Directed by George Stevens
Screenplay by James Lee Barrett, Henry Denker, et al
Max Von Sydow (Jesus), Charleton Heston (John the Baptist)

   This was to have been George Stevens' magnum opus, his Passion of the Christ (as it were): big budget, big screen, big stars, as big as the Hallelujah Chorus. But after pouring six years of his life into a project that went out of control, what he ended up with was a big mess: the veteran director virtually exhausted his career capital on an overblown, unimaginably ponderous telling of the Greatest Story. Carl Sandburg is credited as a "creative consultant" on the film, but poetry is exactly what is most noticeably absent here, in dialogue, narrative, and direction. True, there's a few nice shots, Caucasian Christmas Card pretty, but these are mostly transitional images dissolved quickly to get to the next dull literalization of a biblical episode. Max Von Sydow, not the first or last screen Jesus with mystical blue eyes, is unsmiling, distant, full of otherworldly gazes and labored, monotonous didactic. In a metaphor for what is wrong with this treatment, his characteristic mode is abstraction, separated in white robes from the Death Valley background, along with his interchangeable, anonymous disciples, and anything but incarnate. Of course, what this film is really notorious for is celebrity cameos: Charleton Heston overacts John the Baptist as a bad-haired mad prophet in one, and John Wayne as the Centurion intones a most infamous reading of the line "Surely this man was the Son of God." Donald Pleasance gives the film a rare original reading as an amiable devil, in a low-key Temptation and reappearing later, in crowd scenes, shouting "Crucify Him!" or accusing Peter. But after all the trumpet blowing, one wonders if the story or the telling was supposed to be the greatest. This telling trades excess for authenticity, and genuine dramatic experience for smoke and mirrors.