don2507 I own A DVD of this film and try to watch it at Easter time about every second or third year. In my view, it's the best and most reverent depiction of Christ's life that I've seen with a wonderful score by Miklos Rozsa and excellent production values associated with the epics of the famous producer Samuel Bronston (El Cid, Fall of the Roman Empire). Moreover, Orson Welles' splendid narration conveys the right amount of solemnity and descriptiveness.I'm well aware that King of Kings was largely panned by critics when first released, and although it has gained much in stature in recent decades, it still has its share of critics. Much of that criticism seems to be based on the blue-eyed, heartthrob Jeffrey Hunter playing Jesus in the film, and it was reported that he was selected for the positive effect his looks would have on the box office. But he's grown on me; he has a very rich and charismatic voice and a penetrating stare that conveys an other-worldly look ("my kingdom is not of this world"). His performance in the Sermon on the Mount is commanding and when asked "teach us to pray", his recitation of the Lord's Prayer is soaring and emotional. There's sympathy in his depiction of Jesus: "woman, where are they that condemn you?"; there's steadfastness: "do not tempt the Lord thy God! (to Satan in the wilderness), there's fear: "take this cup from me!" and then there's inscrutable resignation: no responses to Pilate's "art thou a God?" The doctrine of the Incarnation must make playing Christ extremely difficult as you must convey divine attributes and very human emotions.For my money, the best scenes for staging, visual and sound / musical effects, reverence, and spiritual depth and intensity are the aforementioned Sermon on the Mount, the temptations in the wilderness, Jesus' the extinction on the cross followed by dark clouds and rushing wind and the final acknowledgment of God's presence by the cynical centurion, and finally the off-camera presence revealed by a lengthening shadow of Christ's final admonition to the disciples at the Sea of Galilee to "go and make disciples of all nations" amid the soaring music of Rozas. Very inspiring moments! My one criticism, and I thought of knocking the rating down to a 9 because of this but did not, was the over-emphasis on Barabbas and his mission to violently oppose the Romans and free Judea. Barabbas was interested in political freedom. Compare this to Jesus who tells the guards of John the Baptist, who remains in his dungeon, that "I've come to free John from within himself." I suspect the minutes of the film given to Barabbas and his cohort were an excuse to provide several superfluous battle scenes with the Romans, add some unneeded "action" and attract younger audiences. Jesus is not El Cid!

Henry Kujawa Just finished KING OF KINGS (1961). This is a study in contrasts. It reminds me a bit of another film Harry Guardino was in-- MADIGAN (1968). Now let me explain that. MADIGAN is-- supposedly-- a story about a tough detective and his partner trying to track down an insane killer, while the main character's marriage slowly disintegrates. But more than half the film focuses on the Police Commissioner and HIS problems, and except for a couple of very brief scenes where they cross paths, the two parts of the film have nothing in common. Perhaps it was an early example of "parallel" storytelling. All I know is, the first time I saw it, it left me very frustrated.With KING OF KINGS (which, as someone rightly pointed out at the IMDb site, is, in NO way a remake of the Cecil B. Demille silent film of the same name!!) more than half the film is a "Roman Empire" movie, all about opulence, excess, depravity, evil, etc. Until about the time of the "sermon on the mount" scene, Jesus is reduced to a bit player in what is allegedly "his" movie. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as the same was done in THE ROBE and BEN HUR (the latter appears to be the film MGM most deliberately was trying to copy in style, right down to the movie poster art). But depending on what you're looking for, this film can be baffling, maddening, frustrating, or simply inspiring. Take yer pick.For example... virtually all the miracles are described, not shown. The scene where the crowd shouts to free "Barrabus!" --is DESCRIBED, not SHOWN! (When that happened, my jaw dropped, even though today was probably the 5th time I've seen this over the years.) Even the death of Judas-- Barrabus finds his body just as the tree branch breaks, you don't actually see him kill himself.It is interesting how they expanded certain characters, like Lucius (Ron Randell), the Roman Centurion, who we wind up seeing all the way back to the slaughter of the newborns, the tax census-check-up 12 years later, in Pilate's court, and in charge of the crucifixion. (I've only seen Randell in one other movie-- THE LONE WOLF AND HIS LADY, which was really bad, even by "B"-movie mystery standards.)Barrabus, as someone said at the IMDb, is expanded from a mere murderer to a freedom-fighting rebel leader (like Judah Maccabbee), and is virtually the main character in the entire film. As for Harry Guardino, I've lost count of how many times I've seen him in DIRTY HARRY or THE ENFORCER.One of the most prolonged scenes in the film involves Herod Antipas, his wife, and their daughter (his wife apparently hadn't bothered to get a divorce from HIS BROTHER at the time). Someone noted it's almost surprising that after going to such lengths to show Salome's erotic dance for her father, and then the long, long, dramatic scene where she asks for the head of John The Baptist ("HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MIND???") they don't follow-up and show what happened to HER, afterwards. During the trial of Jesus, she's sitting there on the side, looking as if she has lost her mind. She seems totally in a trance or something, as if all life has gone out of her...Pilate (Hurd Hatfield, who some years back I finally got to see in THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY) turns out to be a real bastard. They totally skipped the scene where Jesus is interrogated by the Jewish elders, but the trial before Pilate is shown in more detail than in the Bible, with Lucius arguing in Jesus' defense. When Herod sends Jesus back to Pilate, his anger & annoyance grows and he seems to relish having him whipped just for getting on his nerves, rather than breaking any law.What's interesting is... I read that some 45 minutes of footage was CUT just before release. Makes me wonder, WHAT did they cut? Could it have been any of the scenes merely described in remaining dialogue?It's still a fascinating film, but now I'm really looking forward to sitting thru Jesus OF NAZARETH again. I remember at the time that was made, it seemed the whole point to it was the do the "definitive" Jesus movie-- and in many ways, I think they succeeded. Even if it has the strange thing where they DON'T actually show any miracles on screen-- and you never see Jesus after he dies. It struck me the person who did the film may have aimed it at atheists-- to show them it doesn't matter if you believe he was the son of God or not-- his words and his actions were what counted.

tieman64 Personalities clash in "King of Kings". On one hand you have director Nicholas Ray, renowned for a number of excellent, low key psychodramas. On the other you have producer Samuel Bronston, a man obsessed with excess, money and spectacle ("The Fall of the Roman Empire", "El Cid" etc). Their contrasting tendencies shape 1961's "King of Kings", a stiff, overly lavish recounting of the New Testament, which nevertheless displays faint traces of Ray's customary sensitivity.Like the hero of his earlier film, "Rebel Without a Cause", Ray's Jesus Christ is a deeply conflicted young man. Yes, the film touches upon all the usual Biblical cornerstones - Christ's birth in Bethlehem, the prophecies of John the Baptist, the 40-day ordeal in the desert, the selection of the Apostles, the Sermon on the Mount, Judas' betrayal of Jesus, the Passion, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection, the Ascension etc – but also paints Jesus as a guy unsure of how to lead his people. In this regard, Ray contrasts Jesus with the Biblical figure of Barabbas (Harry Guardino). Here Barabbas is portrayed as a proto-Zionist nationalist hell bent on "saving" Jews from the oppressive power of Rome. Jesus is then offered as an "alternative" to Barabbas. Where Barabbas is a firebrand radical in love with violent revolt, Jesus is a figure of peaceful resistance and, he hopes, long-lasting liberation.Though mildly interesting, Ray's take on Christ can't compete with the best Jesus movies (Passolini, Rossellini etc). As played by Jeffrey Hunter, Ray's Jesus is also mostly creepy, with beady eyes, overly pretty features and fake facial hair. He's more paedophile serial killer than son of God. The film also boasts a cast of thousands, bright Technicolor footage and over 400 sets, but it's all wasted decor.Ray was an atheist (and an early member of the left-wing "Theatre of Action" group), so you'd think he'd find a film about Christ off-putting. But atheists tend to make the best "spiritual" movies. Indeed, during this period you had a number of lefty atheists churning out Bible flicks, from Passolini all the way down to John Huston. Why the attraction? Maybe because Jesus laid the smack-down on corrupt money changers, sided with society's excluded, ran his own free-at-the-point of delivery health service, stuck two fingers up at established religion, dished out food to the masses, rescued women from the death penalty, promised a caring society for the under-privileged and then, as a freebie, got everyone stoned at a wedding. The result? An elitist conspiracy, a show-trial on trumped-up charges and execution. In other words, your typical lefty hero. Until "religion" got a hold of the story.Ray would collaborate again with Bronston on "55 Days at Peking", another lavish epic. That film all but destroyed his career, leaving the poor guy in a lonely place, until Wim Wenders reached out a helping hand. Wenders was a fervent Christian. God bless him. Ray could be a grump.6/10 – Worth one viewing.

chaos-rampant I read a highly amusing bit in the trivia section that I want to share here - apparently the crucifixion had to be reshot because preview audiences reported back offended by a hairy chest. So let this be a revealing irony behind so many whitewashed historic spectacles; movies so often print images that we want to see.But since there is clearly not enough spectacle in this legend, unlike so many Biblical epics as DeMille defined the genre, so loose scripture that pivots around big splashy entertainment on nothing short of a monumental scale, nothing short of waters parting and a temple being toppled, since in its essence, this is a story of humble origins and deep emotion, so Barabbas becomes the hardened guerilla fighter who leads Judean rebels against Roman oppressors.There are two battle scenes here, both ill-advised and distracting. The rest is a common Hollywood Jesus narrative, emphasis on the piercing gaze of virtue and the rod of suffering as the tree of life, blame once more shifted to Romans and the Herods - stressed to be of Arab descent.It doesn't work - it is clunky, feels patched together, formulaic filler when it steers away from the tragic scene. But this reveals something else, let's call it the Italian connection.Now Hollywood at around this time, certainly after the monumental success of Ben Hur, was busy filming casts of thousands in Italy outside Rome, North Africa, Spain and the Almerian desert. The Italians had inspired this tradition as far back as the silent era, and the original Ben Hur had also filmed there, but now all these huge American productions were rolling in, well equipped, professional, helmed by directors of note, and young Italian filmmakers could not hope for a better film school. Many tutored there, including Leone.Why I deem this important to mention, is because this type of film is where the new cinematic language for action films was being forged that would last until a few years ago and is still in the process of being replaced now by the Orson Welles eye.Nicholas Ray was not the man for this project, which I assume was tighly supervised by MGM hoping for another cash cow, and he only gets to bring his colors - those ruby reds and deep cyans, they might as well have spilled over from the cavernous sets of Johnny Guitar. But just look at the kind of filmmaking going on in a few key instances, say the exchange of very tight close-ups of eyes when the Baptist meets Jesus by the river, or the amazing series of operatic panels for the crucifixion, really the only scene worth watching here.They look jumbled and out of their proper order, as though the rest of the film was filmed by clerks. It is going to be breath-taking when Leone unfolds them from the scrunched bunch of celluloid and are made to stretch across rolls of punctuated silence. The catch is that his operas were about scoundrels, but they resonated with something akin to spiritual clarity.So Ray, a filmmaker to watch on a good day, doesn't get it right here, but mostly I believe because spectacle was imposed on him and he only applied colors, not really fussing over arrangements except in the finale. And this particular story can only resonate in its true beauty when the son of God teaches with a dust-caked mouth and bleeds ascetically, and the air is not all musky and baroque but smells of earthly scents.Orson Welles narrates this and is unusually restrained. He had appeared in one of those Biblical epics in Italy a few years back, directing his own scenes for what must have been a tremendous seminar for everyone in attendance. He would appear the next year as a director making a Biblical film in Italy, in a film by the one man who got this story right, an Italian.