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THE ROBE: 1953 Classic-Some Reflections
The introduction and use of cinemascope and of stereophonic sound technology in the making and promotion of Henry Koster’s 1953 classic The Robe became central components in one of Hollywood’s biggest religious themed marketing campaigns. Audiences who were attracted to this large budget, big cast performance of a biblically themed film, were being lured to screenings of this film with the promises of even greater sensory involvement through the use of the newly promoted technologies.
The Robe was a 1953 American Biblical epic film that told the story of a Roman military tribune who commanded the unit that crucified Jesus. The film was made by 20th Century Fox and was notable for being the first film released in the widescreen process cinemascope. The film starred Richard Burton, Jean Simmons and Victor Mature. It was produced in the early months of 1953 and was released in the last month of the Bahá'í holy year, a year celebrating the hundredth anniversary of the first intimations of Bahá'u'lláh’s revelation in the Siyah Chal in Teheran. The year 1953 was also the year my mother joined the Bahá'í Faith in Ontario.
The action in the film took place in ancient Rome, in Capri and in Judaea in 32 AD. Marcellus, a Roman miliary tribune, is played by Richard Burton. He commands the crucifixion of Jesus. He wins Christ's robe at dice and takes the robe with him. A rainstorm begins and Marcellus is about to cover himself with the robe but, as soon as the cloth touches him, he cries in agony that it is burning him. What interests the most in the film is the concept behind the story and the way its point of view works in the famous narrative about early Christianity without focussing directly on the central figure of Christ.
As punishment, Marcellus is assigned to the "worst rat hole" of the Roman Empire—Palestine and, when he arrives, rumours of "mad men" promising a Jewish Messiah are afoot. Knowing as we do the subsequent history, we see the familiar scenes of Palm Sunday, the trial before Pontius Pilate, and the crucifixion at a distance with symbolic meaning.
-Ron Price with thanks to Wikipedia, 14 April 2010.
I was only nine years old
when this film came out
and played at the Roxy
theatre in old Burlington,
the town where I spent my
youth. I was comfortable in
the smalltown smugness of
my childhood; born as I was
into salvation’s complacent
trinity of Catholic, Protestant
and Jew. My world was very
small, safe, familiar, very white.
Indians were the bad guys back
then and they got licked at the
movies, dying copiously amidst
candy wrappers and the popcorm
smell of matinees. In time I came
to find something large enough to
house my impulse to believe; my
need had lain quiet, unhurried and
as insidious as a seed snowlocked
in that blean and lonely landscape.
Some lovesap slowly stirred. God
had not died, but He came awfully
close with sports, girls, school and
family just about drowning Him in
the ordinariness & humanly human
everydayness that was my life back
then so long ago--seems like a dream.
Ron Price
14 April 2010.
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married for 48 years, a teacher for 32, a student for 18, a writer and editor for 16, and a Baha'i for 56(in 2015)
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