1959 – William Wyler – Director William Wyler, who had worked on the 1925 silent production, always joked about the way Ben-Hur ruined him with elite film critics. Jan Herman, in his 1995 biography of Wyler, A Talent for Trouble, reports that as Ben-Hur racked up a sizable pile of awards and money, many French film critics who had praised the subtlety of Wyler's polished char…
1966 – John Huston – The idea for a film about the Bible was hardly an original one. Various biblical stories have been adapted for both stage and screen, but thankfully John Huston's three-hour account of that all-time best-selling book ends with Genesis, chapter twenty-two. The movie begins with a very dark yet spectacular rendition of the Creation and creeps along to cover…
1965 – George Stevens – The Greatest Story Ever Told follows the life of Jesus Christ from his birth to his crucifixion and resurrection. Based on Fulton Oursler's book, the film was ten years and several casting changes in the making. Some critics have said the end product wasn't worth the effort, and it may well not have been worth ten years' wait. But it is w…
1951 – Mervyn LeRoy – Quo Vadis? enjoyably combines romance, religion, and history with big sets and great masses of extras, including Elizabeth Taylor and Sophia Loren. Originally, John Huston planned to direct a version with Gregory Peck and Elizabeth Taylor, but his script never passed muster. The movie was nominated for eight Oscars, but failed to win any. After three years conq…
1953 – Henry Koster – The film rendition of the once-popular novel by Lloyd C. Douglas is a classic morality story. It holds the distinction of being the first widescreen film Hollywood produced as a way of addressing the fears raised in the industry by the popularity of television. It is also among the first uses of stereo in a film. In the Cinemascope widescreen video format, thes…
1949 – Cecil B. De Mille – “Give me any couple of pages from the Bible, and I'll give you a picture,” Cecil B. De Mille is famous for claiming. Of course, he didn't promise a subtle picture. Take away the widescreen dimensions and the comparatively better special effects in his remake of The Ten Commandments, and you end up with something like De Mille&#x…
1956 – Cecil B. De Mille – Upon hearing the word “epic,” often the first film to come to mind is Cecil B. De Mille's lavish production of The Ten Commandments. So popular that it is reshown on network television every Easter/Passover season, the biblical blockbuster includes a bit of every genre: action, romance, philosophical reflection, and disasters (p…
Lew Grade's two television mini-series Moses the Lawgiver (1975) and Jesus of Nazareth (1976), both from script adaptations by British novelist Anthony Burgess, stand out as notable epics of the small screen. Though Burt Lancaster plays the Hebrew patriarch with intelligence and though the six-hour version offers richer character development than the trimmed-down theatrical release of Moses…