The Robe *** (1953, Richard Burton, Jean Simmons, Victor Mature, Michael Rennie) – Classic Movie Review 2,248

The conscientious 1953 biblical epic film The Robe stars Richard Burton, Jean Simmons, Victor Mature and Michael Rennie, and is notable for being the first film ever to be released in CinemaScope. There are five Oscar nominations and two wins.

Director Henry Koster’s conscientious, if antiquated 1953 biblical epic film The Robe stars Richard Burton, Jean Simmons, Victor Mature and Michael Rennie, along with Dean Jagger, Jay Robinson, Richard Boone, Jeff Morrow, Betta St John, Dawn Addams, Torin Thatcher and Ernest Thesiger as Emperor Tiberius. It is notable for being the first film ever to be released in CinemaScope, as the first widescreen movie in more than two decades.

There are five Oscar nominations and two wins: Best Art Direction (Color) and Best Costume Design (Color). Plus one win at the 11th Golden Globe Awards: Best Motion Picture – Drama.

The 20th Century Fox studio specially chose the 1942 Lloyd C Douglas story of Jesus and the robe he gives from the cross to showcase its new CinemaScope format. Fox advertised it as ‘the modern miracle’. Actually they advertised it as ‘the modern miracle you see without glasses’, a swipe at 3D movies.

The screenplay is adapted by Gina Kaus, Albert Maltz and Philip Dunne from the Lloyd C Douglas novel that tells the story of Marcellus Gallio, the Roman military tribune who commands the unit that crucifies Jesus. Douglas wrote the novel to give a fictional answer the question of what happened to the Roman soldier who won Jesus’s robe in a dice game.

Incidentally,  Maltz’s place among the blacklisted Hollywood 10 led to his being denied his writing credit for many years.

The film is a throwback to the old-fashioned Twenties-style movie-making of biblical epics like Cecil B DeMille’s original 1923 silent The Ten Commandments. But there’s nothing inherently wrong with that and certainly the 50s audiences were mightily impressed, like they were with DeMille’s 1956 The Ten Commandments, the 1951 Quo Vadis and the 1959 Ben Hur too. It was that kind of conservative-thinking era.

The performances are fine. Burton was Oscar nominated for his grand acting as Marcellus, the Roman in charge of the crucifixion of Christ. Drunk, he wins Jesus’s homespun robe in a dice game after the crucifixion but he is later tormented by nightmares and delusions. Mature gives a mature performance as Marcellus’s Greek slave Demetrius who kept the robe and fought the gladiators in the 1954 sequel Demetrius and the Gladiators. So this is the only biblical epic film with a sequel, picking up exactly where The Robe ends.

The film is a bit clunky and stately paced, with some strained dialogue. But the sets and vast of thousands crowd scenes are still spectacular, and there is lively, pious direction by Koster. There are two especially outstanding contributions – the famous score composed by Alfred Newman and the cinematography by Leon Shamroy.

As well as those, there is also the Oscar-winning Best Art Direction-Set Decoration (Color) [Art Direction: Lyle R. Wheeler, George Davis; Set Decoration: Walter M Scott, Paul S Fox] and Best Costume Design (Color): Charles LeMaire, Emile Santiago.

The film is produced by Frank Ross, who the rights to the novel for $100,000 in 1942 before it was completed. He got $40,000 plus 20 per cent of the profits.

It cost between $4.1 million and $4.6 million, and earned an estimated $17.5 million in North America during its initial theatrical release, and eventually took $36 million at the US box office.

The film premiered at the Roxy Theatre in New York City on 16 September 1953 and the following day set a record one-day gross for a single cinema of $36,000, followed by a one-week record gross of $264,427.

Since many cinemas were not equipped for CinemaScope, two versions of The Robe were shot, one in the standard 1.33:1 screen ratio and the other in widescreen, with setups and some dialogue differing.

The credited cast are Richard Burton as Marcellus Gallio, Jean Simmons as Diana, Victor Mature as Demetrius, Michael Rennie as Peter, Jay Robinson as Caligula, Dean Jagger as Justus, Torin Thatcher as Senator Gallio, Richard Boone as Pontius Pilate, Betta St John as Miriam, Jeff Morrow as Paulus, Ernest Thesiger as Tiberius, Dawn Addams as Junia, and Leon Askin as Abidor.

Also in the cast are Michael Ansara as Judas, Helen Beverley as Rebecca, Sally Corner as Cornelia Gallio, Rosalind Ivan as Empress Julia the Elder, Donald C Klune as Jesus of Nazareth, David Leonard as Marcipor, Cameron Mitchell as the voice of Jesus, Jay Novello as Tiro, Frank Pulaski as Quintus, Pamela Robinson as Lucia Gallio, and Harry Shearer as David.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2,248

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