#Richard Wyler

[gatutor]

Charles Laughton-Richard Wyler-Sally Forrest "The strange door" 1951, de Joseph Pevney.

[thursdaymurderbub]

Silver Screen magazine, April 1938

[erstwhile-punk-guerito]

[thebestestwinner]

The top two vote-getters will move on to the next round!

[roseshavethoughts]

Showing Pride: 5 Early LGBT Movies You Should See This June

Showing Pride: 5 Early LGBT Movies You Should See This June #PRide #Film #Cinema

Early LGBT cinema emerged as a significant cultural movement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, albeit in an era when homosexuality was deeply stigmatized and criminalized in many parts of the world. Despite societal prejudices, pioneering filmmakers dared to explore same-sex desire, identity, and relationships through their art. These early cinematic works, often characterized by subtle…

[hotelelectrico]

Sometimes at the end of a year, I'll post stills from ten of my favorite movies that I saw for the first time that year. This year, those movies have something else in common: none of them are currently available to stream or rent online in the US. I rented almost all of these on disc from Scarecrow Video, the world's largest publicly-available video archive. They're in the midst of an important fundraising campaign - please consider renting from them, becoming a member, or donating what you can!

The Heiress (1949, USA, director William Wyler): A suitor (Montgomery Clift!) encourages a rich young woman (Olivia de Havilland!) to assert her independence from her father, but can she trust his motives? Classical Hollywood rarely got more psychologically insightful than in this tense but gorgeous melodrama. On Blu-ray from Criterion.

Wait Till the Sun Shines, Nellie (1952, USA, dir. Henry King): A young husband is happy to put down small-town roots while his wife dreams of the city. David Lynch says that this was the first movie he ever saw, and you can feel its influence on his work. Wholesome Americana as a force of perpetual destruction to those who dream of anything else. On DVD-R from Fox Archive.

They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969, USA, dir. Sydney Pollack): Hm, I'm realizing there may be some recurring themes in these, maybe a little bit of cynicism about "capitalism" and "America" and so on. Desperate Depression-era contestants join a nightmarish dance contest for the prospect of guaranteed meals and a cash prize. One of the key films of the New Hollywood movement and a highlight of Jane Fonda's career! On Blu-ray from Kino Lorber.

Wicked, Wicked (1973, USA, dir. Richard L. Bare): Okay time for something fun! A cheesy, gimmicky, thoroughly enjoyable psycho-horror shown almost entirely in split-screen "DuoVision". The film makes genuinely interesting and varied use of its core gimmick , but even without it the lurid twists would be a blast to watch. There's even an atrocious but catchy theme song! On DVD-R from Warner Archive.

Man of Marble (1977, Poland, dir. Andrzej Wajda): A driven young documentary filmmaker seeks out the true story of a bricklayer who had been lauded as a proletarian hero decades before. For another change of pace, we have some cynicism about communism instead of capitalism! Agnieszka the filmmaker is one of my favorite characters of the year, because she possesses every admirable trait: a rock-steady moral vision, a fearless investigatory instinct, and a world-class ability to lounge around and sit in odd positions. On DVD from Vanguard. (I saw this through my university library, but Scarecrow has it too!)

The Driver (1978, USA, dir. Walter Hill): A cool-guy-does-cool-car-crimes movie so stripped-down that none of the characters have names or even change outfits. Ryan O'Neal and Isabelle Adjani are as pretty and blank as you could possibly hope for. The car chases rock. It turns out you can strip this whole genre down to just the chassis and it's still immensely satisfying. On Blu-ray from Imprint.

Urgh! A Music War (1982, UK, dir. Derek Burbidge): Punk and new-wave concert footage from some of the greatest acts of the era! And plenty of other people too! Inherently inconsistent, starts and ends rough but there's a stretch in the middle that's nonstop fire. If you don't know and love Klaus Nomi, you need him in your life. If you haven't watched The Cramps' performance from this, you have no idea how low a pair of leather pants can ride or how salaciously a man can treat a microphone, and you need that in your life too. Plus Devo, XTC, OMD, The Go-Gos, Gary Numan (in an adorable little Star Wars car!) - all aces. On DVD-R from Warner Archive.

To Live and Die in LA (1985, USA, dir. William Friedkin): A vital companion piece to Friedkin's landmark The French Connection, with 80s LA sheen replacing 70s NY grit but the dark heart of copdom left completely unchanged. Willem Dafoe is unforgettable as the artist/counterfeiter antagonist. (Fun fact: the counterfeit money used in the film made its way into actual circulation, which earned Friedkin a visit from the Secret Service. He told them to come back with a warrant and they never did. And that's how the greats do it!) On Blu-ray from Kino Lorber, but 4K UHD is also available!

Twilight (1990, Hungary, dir. György Fehér): You know how people who don't watch a lot of international art films think they're all slow, grim, ambiguous black-and-white slogs through Eastern European despair? Well, that's what this is and it rules. It's shot like nothing I've seen before, full of subtle, misty grays, and the plot is about some detectives failing to catch a child murderer. You know if that sounds like your jam or not, and if it does, you're in for a great bad time. On Blu-ray from Arbelos.

I'm a Cyborg, but That's OK (2006, South Korea, dir. Park Chan-wook): "Taking mental illness seriously" doesn't have to mean being dour or even realist. Park Chan-wook is of course one of the best filmmakers in the world, but he's especially good at nailing tricky, ambiguous tones. I'm thinking of the triumphantly salacious end of The Handmaiden, the tragicomic ending of Thirst, the cathartic but sorrowful but etc etc climax of Lady Vengeance - anyway, this movie lives in that realm all the way through. On Blu-ray from Tartan (I think).

[tastethesetears]

Wyler Valentine’s Day Event | Day 3: Keys

"A soulmate is someone who has locks that fit our keys, and keys to fit our locks. When we feel safe enough to open the locks, our truest selves step out and we can be completely and honestly who we are; we can be loved for who we are and not for who we’re pretending to be. Each unveils the best part of the other." - Richard Bach

[onefootin1941]

Mrs. Miniver", directed by William Wyler and starring Greer Garson, Walter Pidgeon, Teresa Wright and Richard Ney, 1943.

[sensedim1938]

PAKİSTANLI MÜSLÜMAN BİR BİLİM ADAMININ İLGİNÇ ARAŞTIRMASI..

Dünyada yalnızca 14 milyon Yahudi var;

~Amerika'da 7 milyon,

~Asya'da 5 milyon,

~Avrupa'da 2 milyon,

~Afrika'da 100 bin

Adet Musevi yaşıyor..

Soru: Pekiyi de kaç adet Müslüman İnsan var?

Cevap: 1,4 milyar Müslüman;

~1 milyar Asya,

~400 milyon Afrika,

~44 milyon Avrupa,

~6 milyon Amerika

Kıt'asında Yaşıyor.

👉Yâni Dünyada 1 Musevi’ye Karşın 100 Müslüman Var...

İyi ama Yahudiler Müslümanlardan niçin 100 kat daha güçlü ve daha zengin ve daha eğitimli ve daha mucitler?

Tarafsız ve Bilimsel Yollarla tespit edilmiş nedenlerini öğrenmek istiyorsanız lütfen okumayı sürdürün.

👉Tüm zamanların en etkin bilim adamı Albert EİNSTEİN bir Yahudiydi.

👉Psikanalizin babası Sigmund FREUD bir Yahudiydi.

👉Karl MARKS Yahudiydi.

Tüm İnsanlığa zenginlik ve sağlık katmış Yahudilere bakalım;

👉Benjamin Rubin insanlığa aşı iğnesini armağan etti.

👉Jonas Salk ilk çocuk felci aşısını geliştirdi.

👉Gertrude Elion lösemiye karşı ilaç buldu.

👉Baruch Blumberg Hepatit-B aşısını geliştirdi.

👉Paul Ehrlich frengiye karşı tedaviyi buldu.

👉Elie Metchnikoff bulaşıcı hastalıklarla ilgili buluşuyla Nobel ödülü kazandı.

👉Gregory Pincus ilk doğum kontrol hapını geliştirdi.

👉Bernard Katz nöromasküler iletişim kaslarla sinir sistemi arası iletişim alanında Nobel ödülü kazandı.

👉Andrew Schally endokrinoloji metabolik sistem rahatsızlıkları, diyabet, hipertiroid tedavilerinde kullanılan yöntemi geliştirdi.

👉Aaaron Beck Cognitive Terapi’yi akli bozuklukları, depresyon ve fobi tedavilerinde kullanılan psikoterapi yöntemini geliştirdi.

👉Gerald Wald insan gözü hakkındaki bilgilerimizi geliştirerek Nobel ödülü kazandı.

👉Stanley Cohen embriyoloji embriyon ve gelişimi çalışmaları dalında Nobel aldı.

👉Willem Kolff böbrek diyaliz makinesini yaptı.

👉Peter Schultz optik lif kabloyu, Charles Adler trafik ışıklarını,

👉Benno Strauss paslanmaz çeliği,

👉Isador Kisse sesli filmleri,

👉Emile Berliner telefon mikrofonunu,

👉Charles Ginsburg ilk bantlı video kayıt makinesini geliştirdi.

👉Stanley Mezor ilk mikro işlem çipini icat etti.

👉Leo Szilard ilk nükleer zincirleme reaktörünü geliştirdi.

Peki, ama;

~Son 100 Yıl içinde Yahudiler sadece Bilimsel alanda 104 Nobel Ödülü kazanırken,

~1.4 milyar Müslüman neden yalnızca 3 Nobel kazandı

Yahudiler niçin bu kadar yaratıcı ve neden bu kadar güçlüler? Yahudi inancına bağlı ve küresel çapta büyüyüp tanınmış şu yatırımcılara ve işadamlarına ve markalarına bakalım;

* Ralph Lauren (Polo),

* Levi Strauss (Levi's Jeans),

* Howard Schultz (Starbuck's),

* Sergei Brin (Google),

* Michael Dell (Dell Bilgisayarları),

* Larry Ellison (Oracle),

* Donna Karan (DKNY),

* Irv Robbins (Baskins & Robbins),

* Bill Rosenberg (Dunkin Doughnuts)

* Richard Levin (Yale Üniversitesi'nin kurucu başkanı).

Yahudi inancına bağlı ve küresel çapta büyüyüp tanınmış şu sanatçılara bakalım:

* Michael Douglas,

* Dustin Hoffman,

* Harrison Ford,

* Woody Allen,

* Tony Curtis,

* Charles Bronson,

* Sandra Bullock,

* Billy Crystal,

* Paul Newman,

* Peter Sellers,

* George Burns,

* Goldie Hawn,

* Cary Grant,

* William Shatner,

* Jerry Lewis,* Peter Falk...

Yönetmenler ve Yapımcılar arasındaki Yahudiler:

* Steven Spielberg,

* Mel Brooks,

* Oliver Stone,

* Aaaron Spelling (Beverly Hills 90210),

* Neil Simon (The Odd Couple),

* Andrew Vaina (Rambo 1 /2 / 3),

* Michael Mann (Starzky and Hutch),

* Milos Forman (One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, Amadeus),

* Douglas Fairbanks (TheThief of Baghdat),

* Ivan Reitman (Ghostbusters) ,

* Kohen Kardeşler,

* William Wyler.

* William James Sidis

Sorun kendinize;

250’lik IQ derecesiyle Dünyaya gelmiş en parlak insan hangi dine mensuptur?

Sorun kendinize;

Neden Yahudiler bu kadar güçlüdür?

Cevabı şudur;

Her çocuğa ve her gence kaliteli eğitim verirler...

Bu eğitim türü sorgulayıcı (teslimiyetçi değil), araştırıcı (ezberci değil) ve yaratıcıdır (bilgi üretmek/bulmak içindir)

[vintage-every-day]

𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑳𝒊𝒕𝒕𝒍𝒆 𝑭𝒐𝒙𝒆𝒔 1941 Directed by William Wyler. With Bette Davis, Herbert Marshall, Teresa Wright, Richard Carlson. The ruthless, moneyed Hubbard clan lives in, and poisons, their part of the Deep South at the turn of the twentieth century.

[brokehorrorfan]

The Girl from Rio will be released on 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray on September 26 via Blue Underground. The 1969 sci-fi/action spy movie is a loose sequel to 1967's The Million Eyes of Sumuru.

Jess Franco (Vampyros Lesbos, A Virgin Among the Living Dead) directs from a script by Harry Alan Towers (The Mangler). Shirley Eaton, Richard Wyler, George Sanders, and Maria Rohm star.

The Girl from Rio has been newly restored in 4K from the uncensored camera negative with Dolby Vision/HDR and 1.0 DTS-HD MA sound. The first pressing includes an embossed slipcover.

Special features - including a RiffTrax edition of the film - are detailed below.

Special features:

The Girl from Rio: RiffTrax Edition - Riffed by Mike Nelson, Bill Corbett, and Kevin Murphy (new)

Audio commentary with film historians Nathaniel Thompson and Troy Howarth (new)

Interview with Murderous Passions: The Delirious Cinema of Jesus Franco author Stephen Thrower (new)

Additional scenes from German version (new)

Rolling in Rio – Interviews with director Jess Franco, writer/producer Harry Alan Towers, and star Shirley Eaton

Trim reel

Poster & still gallery

Bisexual super-villain Sumitra (Shirley Eaton) launches a diabolical plan to enslave the male species with her army of lusty warrior women. But when Sumitra kidnaps a fugitive American playboy, she crosses a sadistic crime boss (George Sanders) and ignites a battle of the sexes that will bring Brazil to its knees in more ways than one. Get ready to experience director Jess Franco at his most erotic, exotic and bizarre.

Pre-order The Girl from Rio.

[gatutor]

Richard Carlson-Teresa Wright "La loba" (The little foxes) 1941, de William Wyler.

[columbosunday]

2023 Favorites:

Books:

- Nada by Jean-Patrick Manchester

- Vertigo by Narcejac & Boileau

- Pronto by Elmore Leonard

- Mister Wonderful by Daniel Clowes

- Someone Who Isn't Me by Geoff Rickey

Albums:

- Speed, Sound, Lonely KV by Kurt Vile

- Matthew & Son by Cat Stevens

- Tell Mama by Etta James

- The Art Pepper Quartet by Art Pepper

- Count Bassie and the Kansas City 7

Movies:

- The Man from Laramie dir. Anthony Mann

- Forty Guns dir. Samuel Fuller

- Three Days of the Condor dir. Sydney Pollack

- The Children's Hour dir. William Wyler

- Brazil dir. Terry Gilliam

- Hud dir. Martin Ritt

- Written on the Wind dir. Douglas's Sirk

- Basket Case 3 dir. Frank Henenlotter

- Magic dir. Richard Attenborough

Tagged by: @dejavu2006 and @streetlegal1978

[cristalconnors]

JUNE screening log

77. Demonlover (Olivier Assayas, 2002)- 9.4

78. Coma (Bertrand Bonello, 2024)- 9.0

79. Stalker (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979)- 9.0

80. Shampoo (Hal Ashby, 1975)- 6.8

81. Neighboring Sounds (Kleber Mendonça Filho, 2012)- 8.2

82. Anhell69 (Theo Montoya, 2024)- 7.7

83. How to Have Sex (Molly Manning Walker, 2024)- 7.3

84. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Richard Brooks, 1958)- 6.4

85. Hit Man (Richard Linklater, 2024)- 7.2

86. The Heiress (William Wyler, 1949)- 8.1

87. Female Trouble (John Waters, 1974)- 8.4

88. The American Friend (Wim Wenders, 1977)- 9.2

89. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (George Miller, 2024)- 7.8

90. Bringing Up Baby (Howard Hawks, 1938)- 10

91. Stagecoach (John Ford, 1939)- 7.5

92. Romance (Catherine Breillat, 1999)- 8.4

93. From Here to Eternity (Fred Zinnemann, 1953)- 5.5

94. Min and Bill (George Hill, 1930)- 7.3

95. Kinds of Kindness (Yorgos Lanthimos, 2024)- 6.8

96. Funeral Parade of Roses (Toshio Matsumoto, 1969)- 9.4

97. Janet Planet (Annie Baker, 2024)- 8.9

[crowdvscritic]

crowd vs. critic single take // MRS. MINIVER (1942)

Photo credits: IMDb.com

Mrs. Miniver takes place in two eras: the time before September 3, 1939 and the time after.

Before Great Britain declares war on Germany, Mr. Clem (Walter Pidgeon) and Mrs. Kay (Greer Garson) Miniver’s biggest concerns are about money. Specifically, they spend their energy convincing each other—and their upper crust neighbor Lady Beldon (Dame Mae Whitty)—their spending on little luxuries like hats and cars is worthy of their family’s middle class income. Though Lady Beldon does not care for blurring social lines, her granddaughter Carol (Teresa Wright) is more open-minded, catching the eye of the collegiate Vin Miniver (Richard Ney). But everything changes on September 3rd. Vin enlists, Clem volunteers, and Kay makes a bomb shelter comfortable for their young children. For the Minivers, World War II is not just on the battlefield on the continent—it’s here at home.

CROWD // And the Academy’s love affair with World War II begins! Mrs. Miniver is the first of 11 Best Picture winners set during or immediately after the war, which means more than 10% of the Academy’s top prizes have been dedicated to defeating the Nazis. Even among those titles, though, Mrs. Miniver is singular. Casablanca, From Here to Eternity, The Bridge on River Kwai, Patton, and The English Patient follow soldiers and resistance fighters; The Sound of Music, Schindler’s List, and The King’s Speech recount true stories of extraordinary individuals living through the conflict; and The Best Years of Our Lives and An American in Paris depict the struggle to rebuild the world afterward.

Unlike those epics, we only see the Minivers on the homefront. Vin joins the Royal Air Force, but like his mother, we only wonder what he sees from the cockpit. Clem supports the efforts at Dunkirk, but Christopher Nolan still felt the need to depict that rescue of troops in his own film because we never see Clem beyond the horizon of Britain’s shores. Yes, the episodic Miniver lacks the jet-fueled forward propulsion of Nolan’s film, but that wouldn’t be honest with the civilian experience. The family’s skirmishes with danger are few and unpredictable, and in some ways, that makes them more upsetting. When tragedy does strike, it hits a family we’ve laughed and rejoiced with around the dinner table, making this melodrama still moving today.

POPCORN POTENTIAL: 8/10

CRITIC // If there’s any criticism to be leveled at Mrs. Miniver, it’s that its affection for the titular family is blind. Character flaws? Complex motives? Who needs them when you’re trying to create a rousing morale-booster justifying a global conflict still in the court of public opinion? The Minivers and their neighbors are symbolic avatars more than well-rounded individuals, which is just one reason Winston Churchill called this film “propaganda worth a hundred battleships.” In fact, the last scene was literally re-distributed as print and radio propaganda!

Still, given that this particular fight against fascism is one with fewer moral gray areas, romanticizing these people fighting out of uniform has aged better than, say, a film about the Russian Revolution. In the history of cinema, a majority of war films focus on combat and political leaders, while Mrs. Miniver reminds us the people at home—including but not limited to the oft-disenfranchised women, children, elderly, and working classes—can be just as cudgeled by war without enlisting. They may avoid the trenches, but their food, shelter, life, and limb are just as uncertain, not to mention the future of their loved ones serving in the military. With that in mind, who’s to complain about making these hometown heroes so likable? 

It’s also difficult to fault Mrs. Miniver for idolizing its subjects when its cast and its craft are working in tandem with its vision. William Wyler, who still holds the record for the most Best Director nominations at 12, assembled a cast as winning as the parts they were playing, none more than the Garson’s Mrs. Miniver herself. Her hopeful but clear-eyed face of determination creates a center of gravity for the rest of the actors, and the compassion driving her never becomes too syrupy. 

ARTISTIC TASTE: 9/10

[dweemeister]

The Robe (1953)

Henry Koster’s The Robe, distributed by 20th Century Fox, appeared near the beginning of an era where religious epics and sword-and-sandal films became massive box office draws worldwide. Cecil B. DeMille’s Samson and Delilah (1949) and Mervyn LeRoy’s Quo Vadis (1951) had already laid the foundation on which Koster’s film, adapting Lloyd C. Douglas’ novel of the same name, would find its success. Despite The Robe being highly influential in Hollywood and becoming the highest-grossing film of 1953, the likes of DeMille’s The Ten Commandments (1956) and William Wyler’s Ben-Hur (1959) overtook it artistically and financially – no shame there, as those are two far superior films.

So what is The Robe’s claim to movie history beyond its initial theatrical earnings? When The Robe first came to theaters, 20th Century Fox advertised it as the first film ever made in CinemaScope. Created by Fox’s president, Spyros P. Skouras, CinemaScope was a format in which a widescreen camera lens contracted its widescreen shots onto regular 35mm film and, during theatrical projection, another lens would de-contract the image from the 35mm film in order to project a widescreen format. Theaters would only need to make minor, inexpensive modifications to their projectors in order to show a film in true CinemaScope, a 2:55:1 widescreen aspect ratio. Almost all other films were shot in the Academy ratio at the time (1.37:1, close to the 4:3 ratio – think: black bars on the left- and right-hand sides of a widescreen monitor – seen on many older standard computer monitors and televisions). With increasing competition from television, Fox executives believed CinemaScope could be a way to lure audiences back into theaters. Despite this overreaction from Fox’s executives (as well as the other major Hollywood studios), the legacy of CinemaScope’s innovation is still apparent today. Seven decades later, widescreen formats, not the Academy ratio, are the default in film and television.

Walking through the markets of Rome, returning Roman Empire tribune Marcellus Gallio (Richard Burton) reunites with his childhood sweetheart, Diana (Jean Simmons), who is now promised to Marcellus’ rival, Caligula (an always-sneering Jay Robison). Not long after, Marcellus – out of pettiness rather than financial sense – outbids Caligula for the Greek slave, Demetrius (Victor Mature). Marcellus immediately frees Demetrius, but Demetrius thinks of himself as honor-bound to stay by Marcellus. Elsewhere, an incensed Caligula reassigns Marcellus to Palestine – which, to the film’s Roman characters, might as well be the armpit of the Roman Empire. Marcellus and Demetrius go to Jerusalem, where they witness a man named Jesus enter the city, heralded by crowds of Jews greeting him with palms. Several days later, Judean Governor Pontius Pilate (Richard Boone) orders Marcellus to crucify Jesus on Calvary. Marcellus executes the order but, during and after the crucifixion, witnesses and experiences supernatural events. Demetrius, who has become a follower of Jesus during that week, obeys Marcellus when he asks him to fetch Jesus’ robe. The moment Marcellus dons the robe, he suffers something like a seizure. He falls out with Demetrius, and spends the rest of the film reckoning with his conscience over his role in Jesus’ crucifixion.

The film also stars Michael Rennie as Peter, Dean Jagger as Justus, Torin Thatcher as Senator Gallio, and Ernest Thesiger as Emperor Tiberius. Michael Ansara and Donald C. Klune are both uncredited as Judas Iscariot and Jesus, respectively.

The Robe has the misfortune of peaking in the first half. The adapted screenplay from Gina Kaus (1949’s The Red Danube), Albert Maltz (one of the blacklisted Hollywood Ten; 1950’s Broken Arrow), and Philip Dunne (1941’s How Green Was My Valley) is at its most interesting whenever Marcellus and Demetrius find themselves at odds with the other. In the scenes they share together, that happens often. But when Demetrius disappears after their disagreement over Jesus’ robe midway through, the film begins to sag with no foil for Burton to play off of.

For the entirety of this film, Richard Burton’s acting is overwrought. Burton, who had just arrived in Hollywood the year before to star in My Cousin Rachel (1952), is leaning too deeply into his theatrical roots here. His grandiose exclamations, stiff facial acting, and inconsistent line delivery result in a performance that is easily the weakest part of this film (Jean Simmons is also guilty, to a far lesser degree, of these same flaws in her performance). The Robe requires Burton’s Marcellus to undergo a spiritual conversion – becoming an adherent of Jesus despite following orders to crucify him, a developmental arc more dramatic than any other character’s in this film. Burton’s inability to convincingly sell this conversion (the stoic masculine tension, which some will interpret as coded homosexuality, between Burton’s Marcellus and Mature’s Demetrius does not help) weakens the film’s spiritual power.

Instead, it is Mature who is The Robe’s reliable scene-stealer. Mature, at one time likened to a “miniature Johnny Weissmuller”, has the classical Greek physique that, frankly, Burton does not. And in contrast to Burton at this time in their careers, Mature was more capable of a nuanced performance, as evidenced in his roles as Doc Holliday in My Darling Clementine (1946) and Nick Bianco in Kiss of Death (1947). As Demetrius, his soul hardened through his enslavement, there remains hope for a life free from the yoke of the Roman Empire and its callous slave masters. One sees it in his face during Holy Week, culminating with seeing Jesus dying on the cross. His faith is there, too, during a torture scene upon his return to Rome and an encounter with Peter. Amid miracles and cruelties, Mature’s Demetrius is simply the most compelling character of The Robe and the viewer – through Mature’s performance, especially in contrast to those of Jean Simmons and Richard Burton’s – can discern his genuine turn of faith. The Robe’s failure to showcase this inner awakening more believably is the fault of its two central actors and its screenplay; Mature’s performance and Demetrius’ characterization are all that saves the narrative.

One aspect of Christianity that The Robe captures confusingly (and oxymoronically) is the insignificance of Judea and the prominence of early Christianity in Rome in the time immediately following Jesus’ crucifixion. Oftentimes in Biblical epics, Judea is a centerpiece of the Roman Empire when, in truth (and in The Robe), it was a relative backwater. By Caligula’s reign between 37 and 41 CE, Christianity almost certainly would not have had a substantial presence in Rome at that time. So while Caligula would probably see Christianity as a threat, the film’s decision to treat the early Christians as a clear and present danger to his rule and the Roman state religion is the film’s glaring historical inaccuracy. The Robe – the book and the film – muddies the timeline from Jesus’ crucifixion to the film’s final scene in Caligula’s court. The relative suddenness of the Roman Empire seeing the early Christians as a very minor cult into becoming an Empire-wide menace is difficult to reconcile.

With few other post-silent film era Biblical epics as a guide, The Robe helps set the aesthetic of its fellow Biblical epics and sword-and-sandals movies going forward through its costumes and production design. The work of costume designers Charles LeMaire (1950’s All About Eve, 1956’s Carousel) and Emile Santiago (1952’s Androcles and the Lion, 1958’s The Big Country) is resplendent, regardless of either the Roman or Judean setting. Art directors Lyle R. Wheeler (1939’s Gone with the Wind, 1956’s The King and I) and George Davis (All About Eve, 1963’s How the West Was Won) and set decorators Walter M. Scott (All About Eve, 1965’s The Sound of Music) and Paul S. Fox (The King and I, 1963’s Cleopatra) all make full use of the CinemaScope format and color to enliven the scenery – a sumptuous visual treat for the viewer, and, to reiterate, setting a standard that the crew of The Ten Commandments and Ben-Hur both would study and surpass.

Of all of 20th Century Fox contracted stalwarts behind the camera, composer Alfred Newman was the studio’s most important figure. If Fox’s executives needed a composer to craft a score for what they would consider would be their prestige motion picture of the year, Newman – who composed the original 20th Century Fox fanfare and its CinemaScope extension (the extension, which is now inextricable from the fanfare, was first introduced in 1954’s River of No Return) – was almost always their first choice.

In one of Newman’s finest scores of his career, it is his choral compositions, with incredible help from his longtime choral supervisor Ken Darby, that form the score’s emotive spine. Jesus’ motif, shared between wordless choir and strings, appears almost immediately, in the opening seconds of the “Prelude”. During the many invocations of a Messiah before Jesus’ first physical appearance in The Robe, his motif shifts, changes form, and modulates – imparting not spiritual comfort or devotion, but a mysteriousness and otherworldliness. When Jesus (whose face we never see) first appears in Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, the cue “Passover/Palm Sunday” represents one of the rare juxtapositions of the brass-heavy martial music representing the Roman presence in Judea and Jesus himself. The modulation to a major key at 1:22 in this cue, with festive percussion, also includes one of the only instances of celebratory choral music in the score. Jesus’ motif in “Passover/Palm Sunday”, appears at 2:26 – cementing his (and Christianity’s) association with the cue, and appearing as the only instance in which one might consider this motif triumphant.

Choruses, which Western viewers so often associate in religious movies as angelic musical devices, become mournful in “The Crucifixion” – arguably the standout cue of Newman’s score. Even though one might be well aware of Jesus’ death and can anticipate a turn in the music (starting moments earlier in “The Carriage of the Cross”), it is startling to hear Newman’s composition change so rapidly. But it is in these several minutes depicting Jesus’ final moments that Newman, with modifications to his harmonies and orchestration, transforms Jesus’ motif to evoke its tragic dimensions. It is magnificent scoring from Newman, and this is not even mentioning his wonderful demarcation of Roman and Judean identities through his score.

In a film about faith – how it comforts, destroys, heals, and vexes – one wishes that the characterization of The Robe’s supposed lead characters in Marcellus and Diana could feel more plausible. The film’s final scene, possibly allegorizing of screenwriter Albert Maltz’s travails as a blacklisted figure in Hollywood, is decently powerful, but it needs far more storytelling support from numerous scenes preceding it.

As it is, the film’s expressive power lies within Demetrius and Victor Mature’s performance. So how fortunate that, because Fox also wanted to make a sequel to The Robe even before it finished production, Mature also signed a contract to appear in a sequel. Nine months after The Robe made its theatrical debut, Victor Mature starred in Demetrius and the Gladiators, directed by Delmer Daves and also seeing Michael Rennie and Jay Robinson reprise their roles as Peter and Caligula, respectively. Though it did not top the box office for that year like The Robe did, Demetrius and the Gladiators was a financial boon for Fox.

With Hollywood’s major studios always ready to respond to the box office successes of their rivals, The Robe helped make possible the decade of Biblical and sword-and-sandals epics to come – and the required viewings for many a Sunday School student in the years hence. These films were Studio System Hollywood in full maximalism, adopting human and tactile scales seldom seen today.

Yet outside of churchgoers, The Robe – for its CinemaScope and genre-specific innovations – has seen its standing slip gradually over the years, no thanks to the reputations of better movies of this tradition and, regrettably, decisions to keep 20th Century Fox’s valuable past under lock and key. 20th Century Fox’s refusal to distribute their classic films more often and more widely – before and after the studio’s 2019 takeover by the Walt Disney Company (and post-takeover, I believe the situation is now worse) – is resulting in films like The Robe slip through the proverbial cracks of film history, sights unseen for younger film buffs. That is unfortunate, especially as The Robe, almost incidentally (and no matter my aforementioned criticisms of the work itself), continues to quietly wield, by virtue of being the first CinemaScope film, a remarkable influence over cinema worldwide.

My rating: 6/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found in the “Ratings system” page on my blog. Half-points are always rounded down.

For more of my reviews tagged “My Movie Odyssey”, check out the tag of the same name on my blog.