Starring H.B. Warner, Dorothy Cumming and Ernest Torrence
Produced by DeMille Pictures Corporation
It's about 2000 years ago and Mary Magdalene is throwing a party. It's obviously an exotic affair with men throwing themselves at the beautiful hostess and leopards on display.
Mary however is nonplussed to discover her favorite boy-toy Judas is not in attendance. When she finds out Judas would rather spend time with some carpenter from Nazareth, she goes crazy. There is no way she can let this preacher compete with her. She summons her zebra-pulled chariot and sets off to set things right.
What she discovers of course is Jesus as he is curing a blind little girl. The carpenter then drives the seven deadly sins out of Magdalene and she becomes one of his followers.
What happens next will be familiar to most viewers. There's demons to be driven out, tables to be overturned in the temple, and palms to be strewn. Can Jesus survive the political intrigue of ancient Rome or is there a crucifix in his future?
I think you know where this story is going. And that's the danger of any retelling of the New Testament. How do you tell the most well-known story of the last two millennia and keep the audience engaged?
For most of its two-and-a-half hour runtime, Cecil B. DeMille's The King of Kings manages this feat admirably. The director strays from the Bible for moments, but it never feels out of character. In fact, it serves to flesh out the tale in interesting ways.
Jesus' introduction is brilliant. He and the apostles are holed up in a house surrounded by a throng of followers, each looking for their own miracle. A previously lame, but now healed boy spies a blind girl and leads her to an open window to sneak into the dwelling. We don't see Jesus until He begins healing her. As her eyes open and then focus, we see Christ from the girl's point-of-view. It may be the best introduction for Jesus on film ever.
The other moment that sticks with me is the familiar tale of the children trying to see Jesus, but the apostles pushing them back. Jesus of course allows the children to come, leading to a cute moment where a little girl asks Him to "heal" her broken doll's limb. Jesus falls back on his carpentry skills and uses a small stick as a pin to make the doll whole. Very cute.
The other character who gets a fantastic treatment is Judas. Most films don't know how to deal with his motivations, so we get a random, evil turn at the end of the story. Here though we see why he betrays Jesus. He thinks the carpenter is destined to overthrow Rome. He doesn't understand why as Jesus' follower he cannot perform miracles himself. He's prideful enough to think he can cast out demons and seething when he can't.
Judas still believes though. We see his anguish and despair after he turns on his Master. His suicide coincides with Jesus' own death and both are well filmed and effective.
The movie finds humor in small moments as well. My favorite is a bit where Jesus sends Peter to catch a fish under the watchful eye of a couple Roman soldiers. When Peter pulls up his line, the fish is holding a gold coin in its mouth (which allows Christ to provide his "render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's" lesson). However, at the end of scene, we cut back to the Roman soldiers who are unsuccessfully fishing for their own gold-laden catch. Not hysterical, but a fun moment in a place you aren't expecting it.
Still, The King of Kings has a lot of problems as a film. Once the story reaches Jerusalem, it slows to a crawl and suffers from the problem inherent in any telling of this tale: the audience knows where the story is going and the pacing needs to appreciate that. This film doesn't. It drags the viewer through the Last Supper, the garden, Pontius Pilate's deliberations and the march to Calvary at a glacial pace.
As a Catholic, another very annoying flaw is the out of context Scripture verses. At times, the title cards seem to pull Bible quotes at random so that Jesus is saying things that have nothing to do with what is happening on screen. This may be less glaring to those without sixteen years of Catholic school education (ouch!), but it certainly struck me.
The other odd artistic touch was the use of color at a couple of moments during the film. For obvious reasons, the Resurrection is in color, but the other sequence to get that treatment is Magdalene's opening party/orgy. It's a striking way to begin the film, but I hate connecting the scenes in my brain.
When you add it up, I liked moments of The King of Kings and admired the overall craft involved in bringing it to the screen; I just never loved it. The scenes I like (Jesus curing the blind girl, absentmindedly working on a piece of wood before realizing its a cross, and fixing the doll) will now be a part of my own mental telling of the New Testament and that, in itself, is an accomplishment.
***1/2 out of *****
NOTE: As a D.W. Griffith fan, my favorite bit of trivia involves the legendary silent film director. He was visiting DeMille on set, when DeMille spontaneously handed Griffith the megaphone and told him to direct the next scene. So there is a moment during the Crucifixion that is directed by Griffith.
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