Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 141: A Double Bill of Biblical Proportions

During the 1950s we saw the dawn of big pictures being made in Cinescope and Techincolor. To this effect some of the old sword and sandals epics from the early period of cinema started to be updated using these new techniques two of which are the biblical epics we will cover in this blog post.

We start with The Robe which was nominated for Best Picture at the 1954 ceremony adapted from the novel by Lloyd C Douglas it tries to tell the story of what happened to the Roman soldier who won Jesus' robe. The soldier turns out to be Tribune Marcellus Gallio, played here by Richard Burton, a well-liked man who at the beginning of the film takes on a slave Demetrius. Gallio treats Demetrius well but then one day the latter glances upon Jesus and starts to believe in him so refuses to take orders from one of the men who is overseeing the crucifixion. After winning the robe Marcellus starts to get fits and egged on by his love interest Diana and the Emperor Tiberius he starts to discover Jesus' works and his miracle and himself becomes a Christian. However when Tiberius dies and Caligula takes his place Marcellus is forced into taking trial as a conspirator against the empire as Caligula and Marcellus are enemies after Diana left the former for the latter. At the end of the film Marcellus is sentenced to his death and Diana walks with him as the screen fades out they are both walking into clouds with angelic music playing behind them. That final scene displays all you really need to know about The Robe in that its main motive is pro-Jesus and even if you die you'll find happiness in the next life. There's no denying that the film is well made and well shot and fully takes advantage of the Technicolor aspect of the picture. The opening scene in which Marcellus walks through the market just before meeting Demetrius is the film's most spectacular taking in all manner of animals and people later on however the film loses its epic feel as it becomes a lot of people talking in rooms but mind you they are well furnished rooms and all the people in them are well-costumed. Richard Burton was nominated for Best Actor here however I feel the best performances come from Victor Mature as Demetrius and Jean Simmons as Diana. Overall a good example of the 1950s swords and sandals epic that peters out towards the end of its run as its religious message really begins to kick in.

Three years after The Robe and four years after he won Best Picture, Cecil B DeMile presented his final picture The Ten Commandments a nominee in 1957. As you can probably garner from the film's title it deals with the story of Moses and how The Ten Commandments came to be. However that part of the story takes part in the film's final half hour, before that there are three and a half hours explaining Moses' entire life and his need to let his people go. As I really feel there's no need to go over the story of Moses in detail I instead want to focus on how visually spectacular this film is. From Moses discovering the Burning Bush, to the various plagues of Egypt and the famous scene in which Moses parts the water every effect is delivered perfectly which at that time was quite hard to do. In addition there was a 'cast of thousands' involved in the film as a lot of The Ten Commandments see the Egyptians whipping the Hebrews into shape in order to get their cities built. Of the main cast members Charlton Heston ages and grows hair superbly here to play Moses he has much more personality than he did in The Greatest Show on Earth and is able to carry the film although I did think Yul Brynner did a good job as Ramses making him both a forceful and later sympathetic character. However some of the supporting roles, especially Edward G Robinson's Dathan did lapse into pantomime at points as did the part of the film in which the Hebrew people are corrupted and start to worship false idols. Of course the big problem here is that the film does not need to be four hours long and there's easily an hour or so, most of it around the point where Moses meets his wife, that could be cut out to make the film flow a lot more steadily. But at the end of the day this is a visual spectacle that definitely deserves its Oscar nomination and its place in history and indeed both this and The Robe are still in the top 100 grossing films of all time including inflation adjustment. So it just goes to show that there is big money to be made from Bible-based movies so I'll have to grab my copy of The Great Book and start adapting now!

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 118: Nothing to Do With the Four Tops

Over the past couple of weeks in the Oscar Challenge we've had a bit of a religious theme whether it be Bing Crosby's priest visiting a school run by nuns or David Niven's Bishop clashing with Cary Grant's Angel it's all been getting a bit too holy. So I was disheartened to learn that The Song of Bernadette was nothing to do with the 1967 Four Tops hit Bernadette, a bit impossible seeing that the film was nominated for Best Picture at the 1944 ceremony. The star Jennifer Jones also was one of the first to discover that if you play a character with an illness, firstly asthma and later cancer, your chance to win an Oscar is greatly increased. Jones' Bernadette is a young innocent who while gathering logs in a cave in Lourdes ends up seeing a vision of the Virgin Mary. Obviously most people don't believe her, her parents are embarrassed and want her to stop and the officials in Lourdes think that her supposed visions are doing adverse things for the town. The Town Officials are all seen as devious men as they all have ominous facial hair and are played by classical actors like Lee J Cobb and most notably a campy Vincent Price seemingly in a different film from everyone else. Eventually people start to believe her when a spring that Bernadette digs produces water that heals the residents and when the emperor uses it Bernadette is appeased. Her former headmaster suggests that she joins a convent where she comes face to face with her old teacher Sister Vazous who is jealous of Bernadette and wonders why the visions are coming to a girl who doesn't deserve rather than someone like her who has prayed and devote all her life. She feels shame when Bernadette is diagnosed and later dies from cancer of course after her death she was sainted and now everyone talks about the healing qualities of Lourdes.

If The Song of Bernadette were released today it would be seen as a traditional Oscar film. Featuring themes of faith vs. religion, a lead character who is a bit dopey and then suffers from cancer and various Americans pretending to be French and of course a true story this has everything that the Academy loves. But in the less cynical 1940s I think they might just have been taken with the sweet nature of the film and Jones' naive performance as Bernadette which won her the Oscar. To be fair Jones is good as the lead having to go from playing a 14 year old school girl to Bernadette at her death she is able to demonstrate her range. Elsewhere I think Gladys Cooper possibly deserved a Supporting Actress Oscar as Sister Vazous the angry nun who shows humanistic qualities also nominated for Oscars were Charles Bickford as her headmaster priest and Anne Revere as her mother although I just loved Price's town prosecutor maybe because he was so over-the-top. For me it was a little bit too long after a while I got the point that people didn't believe Bernadette and thought the second half of her life was rushed in comparison. The general tone of the thing was very much pro-religion presenting all the non-believers as comical villains and giving them no leeway whatsoever basically saying if you don't believe in God, then you're wrong. So if you can overcome this strong message then you might be able to enjoy some of the performances in the film but personally I'd just stick on the best of The Four Tops album on instead.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 81: A Presidential Epic

Following one biopic with another this time about the 28th President of the U.S.A Woodrow Wilson. Ask someone from the UK to name all the presidents of America that they know and they would probably give you Lincoln, Washington, Nixon, Bush, Clinton and Obama and possibly a couple more. But only the more knowledgeable would be able to tell you about Wilson even though he served through two terms and was the President of America during World War 1 and helped forge the League of Nations. The film itself was the project of 20th Century Fox's head honcho Darryl F Zanuck who was a big fan of Wilson's however despite winning five Oscars it was a monumental flop and Zanuck was so disappointed the film was never to be mentioned in his presence again. One of the reasons that the film may not have done so well is that it is incredibly long. I think Zanuck didn't want to leave anything out about Wilson's life but that means that the film does drag from time to time. We see him originally as a Princeton professor who has written many works about politics he is encouraged to run for governor and then eventually for President. Despite not doing much campaigning he is able to get in due to earnest nature. Initially Wilson refuses that America enter the war claiming that he didn't want to be responsible for any American men losing their lives but eventually he decides to help out and even contributes to the war effort. After the war he is one of the leaders involved in the League of Nations who try to ensure that something like a World War doesn't happen again. Some of the leaders disagree but Wilson delivers a speech and eventually they all agree. That seems to be a recurring theme of the film, Wilson's long and worthy speeches which convince people of his ideas. Meanwhile Wilson's personal life is also detailed with the death of his first wife and his very quick romance and marriage to his second wife. This is one of the moments in the film that I found a bit creepy, I thought that Wilson didn't leave it too long before moving on but the film blesses Wilson's new wife because she is the favourite of Wilson's daughters.

The film's best point and possibly reason for its failure is the no-name Alexander Knox as Wilson himself. Knox doesn't look like an actor and doesn't particularly act and that's why the film works I'd go as far to say as his performance is one of the best I've ever seen by a Lead Actor of all time. Showing little emotion from the beginning to the end but still being passionate about his family and his causes, Knox's Wilson is a compelling presence without being overtly loud and over-the-top. There is a large collection of supporting characters the most famous of whom are Charles Coburn and oddly Vincent Price as one of Wilson's political aides. Supposedly the film glossed over some of Wilson's flaws his very belligerent nature as well as his inherent racism aren't mentioned at all. The film also is very pro-America propaganda, as the film was released while the war was still on and it is very support our troops and boo the Germans. Despite though this is a fairly enjoyable if overlong biopic with a stunning central performance.