Pax Christi!
I’m watching The Robe right now. It’s a favorite of mine. What do you think of it? Do you like “sorta” Biblical movies like The Robe and Ben-Hur?
As long as they don’t show our Lord making out with Mary Magdalene, I like it.
God bless.
Quo Vadis FTW. I have a love-hate relationship with '50s-‘60s Hollywood biblical epics really: on the one hand I find them to be (in modern standards) cheesy/tacky attempts to combine the sacred with ol’ sex, blood, and violence, but at the same time that cheesiness/tackiness is what makes them special.
BTW you know the reason why movies like
The Robe or
Ben Hur or
Quo Vadis or
Barabbas proliferated around that time? It’s because of the
Hays Code (which was in effect from 1930 to 1968), which stipulated that “no film or episode may throw ridicule on any religious faith.” Filmmakers somehow assumed that that meant no cinematic representation of Jesus is allowed, and so for about 30 years (from Cecil B. DeMilles 1927
The King of Kings to the 1961
King of Kings), major film studios in Hollywood were hesitant to film the life of Jesus or even show Jesus’ face. And that pretty much explains why in these movies, Jesus is always either an off-screen character or is ingeniously hidden so that His face is not visible. (In Britain meanwhile, the British Board of Film Censors had already forbade cinematic representations of Jesus in 1912, a ban which would not be lifted until after World War II. As a consequence, American films slated for British production had to conform to this standard. In fact, DeMille’s
The King of Kings was screened in London only after a special license was obtained; a 1935 British film,
Barabbas (not related to the Hollywood movie), never shows Jesus on-screen but instead features only His voice.)
The biggest exception to this rule was a twelve-episode television series produced by a Christian filmmaking company made in 1951 - which in turn was edited and remade into a couple of spin-off films - known as
The Living Christ, which not only depicted Jesus’ life, but also showed the actor on screen. On the other hand,
the three feature lengths on the life of Jesus made by Fr. Patrick Peyton’s Family Theater made at around the late '50s is more of a compromise: it was a Spanish-American effort, but to make it palatable/screenable in America the actor portraying Jesus has his back perpetually turned to the camera!
Keep humming the music today.