The huge mass of Christian homilies which form the bulk of Hollywood's output were generally dramatized in the form of pious zealots versus callous Romans, with appropriate Judaic interpretations. Both Richard Fleischer's The Vikings and King Vidor's Solomon and Sheba (1959) make play with their Christian or Judaic versus Pagan thematic but the latter film and undoubtedly the better of the two, settles for a glib final conversion to monotheism of the idolatrous queen (played by Gina Lollobrigida in a commanding performance of electrifying sensuality).
When dealing directly with the story of Christ, the epic cycle produced two fascinatingly opposed portraits, King of Kings conceals a complex reconstructing of the main biblical characters and a specifically Zionist ideology beneath its colorful Sunday-school veneer, while The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965) is pieced together like a majestic symphony with Christ as the prime mover and central focal point in a devout and almost funereal atmosphere.
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| That Ben-Hur musta needed Ben-Gay after a day at the chariot races. |
Curiously for the greatest works in the religious movie genre, one must look to those stories in which the central protagonist functions in its duality as the Christ-figure and pragmatic hero. Barabbas evokes film noir in its depiction of a man moving towards a fate only half-perceived and from which he originally seemed to escape. El Cid presents an intense portrait of a medieval proto-Christ who is, at the same time a knight redeemer. Finally, king of them all, is from the year 1965, Ben-Hur where the protagonist progresses from nobility through oblivion to final redemption. It is a film that stands as a testament to the entire epic genre. A film that was erroneously remade in 2016. Gut Yontiff and Happy Easter folks.