Columbia jumped on the 50s Bible bandwagon with this tale of the most famous dancer in the New Testament, which seemed a natural for the studio's biggest star, Rita Hayworth. This isn't a roadshow spectacular (not really teaming masses of extras) they recruited a top line support cast including Stewart Granger, Charles Laughton and Judith Anderson.
This film doesn't have a particularly good reputation, but after a flat credit sequence (yellow letters on a white background - how about some cool art or pictures of the ancient world?),for a while this is surprisingly engrossing, mostly because the main characters are well drawn and they all have understandable, well defined and conflicting motivations, which is always the stuff of good drama.
John the Baptist (Alan Badel, getting an "introducing" credit and lots of close ups, indicating Columbia had had plans for him) is clearly shown to be a wide-eyed fanatic,raving about God and the coming Messiah, preaching about the immorality of Judea's queen for marrying her dead husband's sister, the queen (Anderson) wants him dead for doing such things, Herod (Laughton) wants to keep him alive because he's afraid of the prophecy, Roman soldier Stewart Granger wants to defend him because he's become Christian, Pontius Pilate just wants the peace to be kept so he doesn't upset Tiberius Caesar (played without any kink or indication of sauce by Cecil Hardwicke - interesting Tiberius, along with the opening credit spiel, refers to himself as following Julius Caesar rather than Augustus - I guess everyone knows Jules but even Augustus wasn't super well-known to American audiences).
John the Baptist (Alan Badel, getting an "introducing" credit and lots of close ups, indicating Columbia had had plans for him) is clearly shown to be a wide-eyed fanatic,raving about God and the coming Messiah, preaching about the immorality of Judea's queen for marrying her dead husband's sister, the queen (Anderson) wants him dead for doing such things, Herod (Laughton) wants to keep him alive because he's afraid of the prophecy, Roman soldier Stewart Granger wants to defend him because he's become Christian, Pontius Pilate just wants the peace to be kept so he doesn't upset Tiberius Caesar (played without any kink or indication of sauce by Cecil Hardwicke - interesting Tiberius, along with the opening credit spiel, refers to himself as following Julius Caesar rather than Augustus - I guess everyone knows Jules but even Augustus wasn't super well-known to American audiences).
Where the script has troubles is with the character of Salome - they want to have her as a temptress who then sees the Light, but it doesn't quite work. For instance, her anger at the Romans isn't very well motivated - she's angry at them because they kicked her out of Rome and forbid her from marrying a Roman. It's not enough. Did she really like this guy? (If she did it cheapens her feelings for Granger). Did she really like Rome? The Romans should have done something nastier to her. Then she's after John's head, which is fair enough - but her conversion to Christianity isn't very well done (its both in the writing and Hayworth's playing).
So the final dance is confusing - I think she's doing it to save John, though I don't know how that works - and Laughton is supposedly so excited by it he agrees with Anderson's request for the head he agrees, which doesn't really make sense, as does Granger coming in at the end saying "you're all doomed" (they actually show Badel's head on a plate, which is pretty full on for 1953).
So the final dance is confusing - I think she's doing it to save John, though I don't know how that works - and Laughton is supposedly so excited by it he agrees with Anderson's request for the head he agrees, which doesn't really make sense, as does Granger coming in at the end saying "you're all doomed" (they actually show Badel's head on a plate, which is pretty full on for 1953).
Hayworth is pretty and does a decent dance (even if, as in King of Kings, the dance is never that inspiring to make you so "yes,you would chop off a head for that"), Laughton and Anderson skilled as always, Badel makes an effective (not very sympathetic) fanatic (he is so keen on dying his eventual death isn't really a tragedy), Granger very good (he pulls off the"I believe in a better tomorrow" stuff, with a glint of the true believer in his eye, which are difficult things to do), but those wheels fall off at the end.
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