The Greatest Story Ever Told **** (1965, Max von Sydow, Dorothy McGuire, Charlton Heston) – Classic Movie Review 2,457

George Stevens’s 1965 biblical epic film The Greatest Story Ever Told stars Max von Sydow, who brings his much needed dignity and nobility to his portrayal of Jesus Christ in this story of his life. John Wayne pops up as a Roman officer at the crucifixion. 

Director George Stevens’s meticulous 1965 biblical epic The Greatest Story Ever Told stars Max von Sydow, who brings his much needed dignity and nobility to his portrayal of Jesus Christ in this story of his life from the Nativity to the Ascension. This is the one where John Wayne pops up as the Roman officer supervising Christ’s crucifixion.

Apart from the extremely unwise deployment of half of Hollywood in unsuitable cameos, this is a sincere, reverential and elegant retelling of the Bible story with some breath-taking moments. The screenplay is by George Stevens and James Lee Barrett, based on the book by Fulton Oursler. It originated as a half-hour radio series in 1947, inspired by the Bible’s four canonical Gospels, and was then adapted into Oursler’s 1949 book.

Considerable credit is due also to William C Mellor and Loyal Griggs’s Technicolor cinematography, Alfred Newman’s score, and the art direction by Richard Day, William J Creber and David S Hall, all Oscar nominated.

It was nominated for five Oscars but there were no wins: Best Cinematography Color, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration Color, Best Costume Design Color, Best Effects, Special Visual Effects and Best Score Substantially Original. Mellor’s nomination for Best Cinematography Color is posthumous, as he died from a heart attack during production. Loyal Griggs was brought in finish the movie.

Director Stevens is probably the man to blame for the film’s relentlessly solemn tone, sedate pace and sprawling length, though David Lean and Jean Negulesco also worked uncredited on the direction of some sequences after filming fell behind schedule through Stevens’s slow shooting techniques.

Several much shorter versions are available. There are several different versions: 260 minutes, 199 minutes (edited), 141 minutes (re-issue) and 225 minutes (premiere).

When Wayne said his one line: ‘Surely, this is the son of God’, the director said: ‘Again, Duke, but with awe.’ So Wayne said ‘Aw, surely, this is the son of God.’

it is Claude Rains’s final film role, as Herod the Great.

Also in the cast are Dorothy McGuire, Claude Rains, José Ferrer, David McCallum as Judas Iscariot, Charlton Heston, Sidney Poitier, Donald Pleasence, Roddy McDowall, Gary Raymond, Carroll Baker, Pat Boone, Van Heflin, Sal Mineo Shelley Winters, Ed Wynn, Telly Savalas, Angela Lansbury, Joseph Schildkraut, Victor Buono, Nehemiah Persoff, Michael Anderson Jr, Ina Balin, Richard Conte, Joanna Dunham, Martin Landau and Janet Margolin.

Judas Iscariot (David McCallum) commits suicide by falling into a fiery pit at the temple in Jerusalem but Matthew 27 tells that he committed suicide by hanging himself.

MGM had filmed a rival Jesus Christ epic, King of Kings (1961), which opened a couple of years earlier and was an hour shorter. In September 1961 Twentieth Century Fox withdrew from the project because of its high cost and its similarities to King of Kings. Undeterred, Stevens began again at United Artists, and then filmed not in the Middle East, but in the US Southwest from October 29, 1962 to August 1, 1963.

The film premiered at the Warner Cinerama Theatre in New York City on February 15, 1965. It was advertised on its first run as being shown in Cinerama, but, while it was shown on an ultra-curved screen, it was with one projector and true Cinerama required three projectors running simultaneously.

Stevens reflected: ‘I have tremendous satisfaction that the job has been done to its completion the way I wanted it done, the way I know it should have been done. It belongs to the audiences now and I prefer to let them judge.’

The main cast are Max von Sydow as Jesus, Dorothy McGuire as the Virgin Mary, Charlton Heston as John the Baptist, Claude Rains as Herod the Great, José Ferrer as Herod Antipas, Telly Savalas as Pontius Pilate, Martin Landau as Caiaphas, David McCallum as Judas Iscariot, Donald Pleasence as The Dark Hermit (Satan), Michael Anderson Jr as James the Less, Roddy McDowall as Matthew, Joanna Dunham as Mary Magdalene, Joseph Schildkraut as Nicodemus, and Ed Wynn as Old Aram.

Also appearing are Michael Ansara, Carroll Baker, Ina Balin, Robert Blake, Pat Boone, Victor Buono, John Considine, Richard Conte, John Crawford, Cyril Delevanti, Jamie Farr, David Hedison, Van Heflin, Russell Johnson, Angela Lansbury, Mark Lenard, Robert Loggia, John Lupton, Janet Margolin, Sal Mineo, Nehemiah Persoff, Sidney Poitier, Gary Raymond, Marian Seldes, David Sheiner, Abraham Sofaer, Paul Stewart, Michael Tolan, John Wayne, Shelley Winters. Richard Bakalyan and Marc Cavell,

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2,457

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