The first movie ever filmed in CinemaScope, THE ROBE ws nominated for five Academy Awards in 1953, including Best Picture and Best Actor for Richard Burton. Burton stars as Marcellus Galilo, the Roman centurian charged with overseeing the crucifixion. But when he wins Christ’s robe in a gambling game at the foot of the cross, his life is forever changed.When Roman tribune Marcellus Gallio (Richard Burton) is sent to Jerusalem, one of his assignments is the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Marcellus, a cynical and hardened man, wins the robe Jesus wore to the crucifixion while gambling with other Roman soldiers underneath the dying savior. He later becomes convinced that his hallucinations and violent outbursts are the result of a curse received from the robe, which is now in the possession of his escaped slave, Demetrius (Victor Mature), somewhere in the Middle East. He sets out to find Demetrius in order to destroy the robe and the curse and finds faith instead, converting to Christianity. This was the first movie to be filmed in CinemaScope, and won Oscars in 1953 for costume design, art direction, and set decoration. The visual aspects of the film are stunning, and it may be worth viewing for that alone; however, the script and acting leave much to be desired, and you won’t find inspiration in these areas if that’s what interests you. If, however, you are more interested in this film for its religious matter, the story of the conversion of the hardened Marcellus is inspiring. –James McGrath
March 5, 2010
#1
No historians of the time mention Jesus. Suetonius (65-135) does not. Pliny the Younger only mentions Christians (Paulists) with no comment of Jesus himself. Tacitus mentions a Jesus, but it is likely that after a century of Christian preaching Tacitus was just reacting to these rumours, or probably talking about one of the many other Messiah’s of the time. Josephus, a methodical, accurate and dedicated historian of the time mentions John the Baptist, Herod, Pilate and many aspects of Jewish life but does not mention Jesus. (The Testimonium Flavianum has been shown to be a third century Christian fraud). He once mentions a Jesus, but gives no information other than that he is a brother of a James. Jesus was not an unusual name, either. Justus, another Jewish historian who lived in Tiberias (near Kapernaum, a place Jesus frequented) did not mention Jesus nor any of his miracles. It is only in the evidence of later writers, writing about earlier times, that we find a Jesus.
March 5, 2010
#2
This film is so embarassingly bad that it can almost be a camp classic, which is why it is difficult to decide whether to give it one or five stars. The painted sets are dreadful, the acting laughably pathetic, but biggest golden turkey has to go to one of the most nonsensical screenplays I have ever experienced. I absolutely howled with laughter at some of the scenes, the unintentional homo-eroticism at times reminding one of the cheapest of cheap gay porn. The reason why the one star instead of the five won through, was that the amusement eventually became irritation, as the film far outstays its camp potential. I know a lot of people will argue that the film dates from the fifties and can therefore not be judged by today’s standards, but please: there are some truly great films from that age. This one is merely a badly timed joke.
March 5, 2010
#3
The Robe is a movie about the Roman’s during the time of Jesus. It describes events surrounding a `robe’ that Jesus wore before his crucifixion. But the story is not simple focused around the robe. Instead it includes many sub-plots such as a love story between Marcellus, the main character, and his childhood friend whom he promised to marry years ago. This robe is supposedly cursed and affects the main character in terrible ways. The story shows life at the time of Jesus’ crucifixion. However, this movie leave the viewer with much to be desired. In fact, the movie was terrible. The characters in this movie were terrible. The acting was not believable. For example, when Marcellus’ slave (a was too busy thinking about when the movie was going to be over to note his name, although I was trying to take notes to keep from falling asleep) is whipped by the Romans as Jesus is carrying the cross (in actuality Jesus didn’t carry the entire cross but really just one beam, the other was already staked into the ground) I simply did not believe that he was in pain. And then he got up after the kind woman cleaned him off and started walking directly toward the camera, like he was a rabid dog, was simple bizarre. I got confused in this scene because of the poor filming. When the camera changed I thought there were others whom had also been whipped and that there were four people in the scene (two people that had been whipped) In actuality the angle on the two people (slave and kind woman) had changed dramatically. This movie’s redeeming factors were supposed to be the costume design, set decoration and art direction, for which this movie won Oscars for this things (please note that the movie didn’t win for any acting, directing, producing, ect categories) Yet in today’s word of movies these things didn’t seem at all important. It was hard to focus on the fantastic set when I was trying very hard not to fall asleep This movie was the first to be filmed in CinemaScope, but I was not impressed. You would think they could have done a better job with cutting it down to TV size. At the beginning, some of the names on the opening credits were cut off, quite annoying. And even in the movie people were talking when they were not on stage. The Robe was based on a book. And for the readers of the book, I hope they found the books more interesting than the movie, because I would rather gag myself with a wooden spoon, and then stick my tongue into a food processor (maybe not) then watch this movie a second time. The tittle, The Robe, simply explains what this is going to be about. But the movie would have been more interesting if it had simple been about a talking robe. The people who had speaking roles in this movie did not deserve them. This movie was written during the 1950′s. Perhaps it were better liked then, in the culture without the Internet, ect. It was not written during a war, but I wish I would have been-then maybe it would have been destroyed in combat before it could have even been mass produced. I think I might devote my life to ridding the world of this terrible movie as a public service,–NOT ONE ELSE SHOULD WASTE THEIR TIME WATCHING IT AGAIN. This movie was written almost two millenniums about the events happened. Therefore the writers of the script (which was terrible) really did not know what they were talking about. For example: no one spoke English in Rome. I wish this movie was in Latin, (without subtitles) therefore the only people who could understand it were those who were patient enough to learn fluent Latin. The would definitely improve this movie for the simple reason that it would stop people from seeing it. There is no other ways to improve this movie, it is simple too bad to make good. Time to start over.
March 5, 2010
#4
Roman tribune Marcellus Gallio (Richard Burton) is assigned to Jerusalem and happens to attend the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. He wins the robe Jesus wore to the crucifixion in a game but is later convinced that the robe is cursed. He suffers hallucinations and seeks to destroy it. His slave Demetrius (Victor Mature) runs off with the robe and Marcellus follows him back to Judea. When he arrives, he converts to Christianity but is persecuted upon his return to Rome.
The settings are based only on Biblical references and this was not a good idea: the script clearly demonstrates the script writer’s and director’s complete ignorance as to anything having to do with Imperial Rome. As a result, the depiction of Roman civilization and culture is as shallow and 2-dimensional as Rambo IIIs depiction of Vietnam: a sharp contrast to the wonderful work done for other biblical/classical films of that period such as ‘Quo Vadis.’ Caligula was a demonically intelligent and sadistic sociopath and not the ignorant retard portrayed in the film. Tiberius was a paranoid, avaricious, and perverted pedophile but the film portrays him as some form of friendly paternal figure instead. Does any one in Hollywood read a history book from time to time or are they just too busy reading and approving bad scripts? The script is equally poor and the acting rigid. Richard Burton’s performance is the only saving grace to this movie.
This is a good movie for the very young attending Sunday school but I wouldn’t waste my money buying it. The script is awful, the setting is absurd, and the acting is pretty stiff even by Burton.
March 5, 2010
#5
Try roman Holiday instead of this.It’s trash.