Oedipus the King **** (1968, Christopher Plummer, Lilli Palmer, Orson Welles, Richard Johnson, Cyril Cusack, Roger Livesey, Donald Sutherland) – Classic Movie Review 3274

That great actor Christopher Plummer is stupendous as Oedipus in co-writer/director Philip Saville’s brave and imaginative attempt to film the classic Sophocles Greek tragic play. And Orson Welles, Lilli Palmer and Richard Johnson are marvellous also as the doomsayer Tiresias, Queen Jocasta and Creon.

It looks great, too, thanks to Walter Lassally’s classy cinematography, and is mighty enriched with a cast who demand and command respect: Cyril Cusack as Messenger, Roger Livesey as the Shepherd, Donald Sutherland as the leading Member of the Chorus, Friedrich von Ledebur as Laius, Oenone Luke and Alexis Mantheakis. However, Sutherland’s voice was dubbed by Valentine Dyall.

Michael Luke writes the screenplay with Saville. It is theatre director Saville’s first movie, and he plans to keep it theatrical with an outpouring of the intensive dialogue expected from an ancient play. However, it boldly shows Oedipus and Jocasta making love in bed together and, in flashback, the murder of Laius.

It was filmed in 1967 on location in Greece at the spectacular ruined Greek Amphitheatre in Dodoni, Epirus, Greece.

It was simultaneously made by Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini in Morocco as Oedipus Rex [Edipo Re] (1967) with Franco Citti, Silvana Mangano and Alida Valli, and previously filmed as Oedipus Rex by Tyrone Guthrie in Canada in 1957.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 3274

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