I just watched another old movie that I messed. I stumbled across a DVD set of biblical epics, and finally got a chance to see John Huston’s The Bible…In the Beginning, which came out ion 1966. I remember the TV ads for it, and even had a copy of the published script once. But I never saw it until now.
It’s much better than you’d think. Unlike other epics, like The Ten Commandments (which is mainly pageant, with special effects), or more recent films like Noah or Exodus; Gods and Kings (special effects-fests, with dark characters), this plays it straight and had limited and subtle effects. It certainly helps that award-winning playwright Christopher Fry wrote the screenplay, which is very well done.
The opening section, with the creation of the world and of Adam and Eve, wasn’t hugely impressive. Beautifully photographed, but I thought they botched it when they open on flashing lights – it should have been completely dark until God says “Let there be light!” Adam and Eve look too Clean, White, Northern European to me, even for the 1960s.*
But the film really comes into its own in the following scenes, which follow the book of Gnesis up through Abraham’s sacrifice. I’m surprised at the “name” stars who show up in this. Richard Harris is Cain. Stephen Boyd, who played Bad Guy Masala in Ben Hur, is Nimrod, who builds the Tower of Babel. Peter O’Toole plays three angels who appear to Lot. George C. Scott does a wonderful extended turn as the patriarch Abraham.
Peter O’Toole’s part is interesting. He plays the three angels who visit Lot in Sodom. His house is then beset by his neighbors, who want the men to come out. It’s possible that you may not be familiar with this part of Lot’s story unless you’ve read Genesis on your own, or in a college course. This part tends to be glossed over in religion classes and Sunday schools. Heinlein made a point of including it in Stranger in a Strange Land. The people of Sodom want the angels to come out because they want to have sex with them (one reason they generally skip this). Lot offers the crowd his daughters instead. (Another reason they skip this.) I suspect at the time, it appeared that Lot was making a great sacrifice of his own “property” to save his guests, but to modern sensibilities, hi action in offering his daughters to a crowd for clearly sexual purposes seems monstrous
To their credit, Fry and Huston leave this scvene in – they don’t censor the Bible. What’s even more interesting is that O’Toole’s angel smites the Sodomites with a glance. It’s all the more interesting because O’Toole’s first big role was as T.E. Lawrence in Lawrence of Arabia, whose character is transformed after his captivity by the Turks in Deraa. The film, from 1964, was restained in its depiction ofg the events, showing Lawrence being beaten, but the implication is clearly that he was raped. This role, with O’Toole smiting his would-be rapists with a look, feels like a necessary comeback. Hustyon can’t have been unaware of the connection.
The film has no credits at the beginning, and somewhat lengthy end redits. It occurs to me that it resembles 2001: A Space Odyssey in this, and that Star Wars also follows this. I’ve often said that Star Wars is the first film I can recall with REALLY long end credits, of the kind that have become standard these days, with lengthy recessional music and credits tat seem to thank every conceivable contributor to the film. It seems to me now that Star Wars’ contribution was to take an existing practice (no opening credits/ longer end credits) and make it really long.
. *(If you really want to see a nifty interpretation of the Creation story from Genesis, look up Will Vinton’s The Creation, done in clay “painting” and narrated (from a poem) by James Earl Jones in the style of a southern preacher. It was nominated for an Academy Award)