The Bible: In The Beginning... (1966)

 ...AND GOD SAID: "I HEREBY DECLARE THIS TO BE ONE OF THE MOST BORING FILMS IN EXISTENCE." AND SO IT WAS.

I cannot review this film without offending someone. You see, I am not a religious person, so in order to review a movie about the Bible, I really can't quite sympathize with those who, what's the word...associate closely towards the stories in the book. I don't want this review to be all about religion, so I guess I'll just address it here. I will try to focus on the aspects of the film and not on the source material, but if I have to I will voice my opinion on the issue.

That aside, this film kind of sucks. The main problem I had with the film is such, it's incredibly boring. Similarly to most other biblical epics, the pace is languid, the film wooden and the length overlong. This film tells four stories. First is Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve frolic in the garden of Eden for a while, but then Eve eats a magic fruit and god gets pretty mad because he told her not to. As a result, he banishes Eve and Adam from the garden and they form their own life. They have two sons, Cain and Abel. One day, Cain kills Abel and then god banishes him. Next is the story of Noah and his big ark where he takes a bunch of animals and rides out god's giant flood which destroys everything else on earth.

Noah builds a giant ark after god asks him to, because god wants to kill everyone else. Then Noah and his family take many animals and ride out the storm. This lasts for about forty minutes. Then it gets really boring. God sends Abraham into the desert with his family and stuff, and Abraham establishes a colony there. God speaks to Abraham and gives him advice, gets his wife pregnant, after god advised him to sleep with his maid instead, and then sends three angels to destroy the nearby city of Sodom. Then god gets Abraham to almost kill his son, but then he doesn't.

Okay. Where do I start? Perhaps a little history would be helpful. This film was started with Robert Bresson directing, but then Dino De Laurentiis, the producer, got fed up with Bresson's original and artistic style. He replaced him with John Huston, an atheist, and Huston took the job. For the money, of course. Huston also played Noah, and the narrator, and at points, god. I'll get to the acting in a minute, but first I just want to say one thing. This film may be among the few films I have ever had the violent urge to yell at the screen "get on with it!".

Anyways, the acting. The film has a lot of great actors, and a lot of unknowns. They all share one common thread, they suck. I don't want to seem harsh, but oh my, are they bad. Their dialogue is taken directly from the bible, and thus it feels wooden and forced coming out of their mouths. The only actor who seems at ease with it is George C. Scott, who goes completely method in the role of Abraham, in a way that seems incredibly fake. I'll do a list here: Michael Parks as Adam+ Ulla Bergryd as Eve= wooden, forced, completely naked for the first half of the film. Richard Harris as Cain= over the top, wooden, over dramatic. John Huston as Noah and God= good voice, bad acting, seems incredibly bored, says lines in a mocking and uninterested tone. George C. Scott as Abraham+ Ava Gardener as Sarah = one is too much, one is too little, one seems to young, one seems too old, one is not bad, the other isn't good at all. Peter O'Toole as The Three Angels = easily the best performance in the film, he is actually not that bad, but he does blow up a building by staring at it furiously. Final Verdict= pretty bad acting, most of the cast doesn't establish their characters in any way that makes us care for them at all.

Well, there you go. The acting is pretty bad. But one can put the majority of the blame of the screenplay. Christopher Fry is a well regarded playwright of the time, but you couldn't tell by this film. His dialogue is stodgy and old fashioned. He never develops the characters in anyway, and his view point is incredibly one sided. He just transfers the bible to the screen, there is no innovation here at all. He never put his own spin on it, or tried to make the material more viewable, he just wrote it, in a very boring way actually. This is the root of all the film's problems. If the screenplay had been just the tiniest bit innovative or creative, than perhaps the film might have been better than the final result.

The cinematography looks appropriately epic, but I never really got anything from this film in terms of scope. I just couldn't feel it, I couldn't feel that quality that makes or breaks this kind of film. That isn't due mainly to the cinematography, but it wasn't quite as creative as I had hoped. The film certainly looks good, but it does not feel "good". It just lacks that quality that makes this film a success. The film's failure does not have to do with the cinematography, but it certainly has to do with a few other major things.

The score, in all it's bombastic "epic" glory, is perhaps one of the most annoying parts of this film. It never gives the film an edge at all. It just plays out with little to no innovation, and all it's musicality in itself is also kind of boring. It just chugs along, never feeling quite that special or interesting at all. The sets are quite nice, they give the film a false sense of grandeur, but it certainly makes things look good to the eyes.

This brings me to another subject, and perhaps the most interesting one to me. Huston's direction, in itself I find it a really intriguing idea. An atheist directing a movie on the bible. Was Huston going to add something, or try to approach the subject matter in a way that expresses skepticism? Unfortunately, the answer is no. Huston did something worse here than giving the film his point of view, he gave the film his sense of boredom. It increasingly appears that Huston just took the job for the money, and like Annie, invested it with empty promises. The scope and spectacle is all here, but where is the heart of this film? To be honest, it doesn't have any. For all it's preaching and showcasing of god's magical abilities, this film ultimately has nothing to say, and even less to show.

It's just there.

The Bible: In The Beginning...
1966,
Starring: John Huston, George C. Scott and Peter O'Toole,
Directed by John Huston,
4.5/10 (F)

RANKED:
1. The African Queen
2. The Dead
3. The Man Who Would Be King
4. Moby Dick
5. The Asphalt Jungle
6. The Red Badge Of Courage
7. The Night Of The Iguana
8. Key Largo
9. The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean
10. The Misfits
11. Beat the Devil
12. Reflections in a Golden Eye
13. Fat City
14. Wise Blood
15. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
16. The Unforgiven
17. Under The Volcano
18. Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison
19. Victory
20. The List of Adrian Messenger
21. Annie
22. Prizzi's Honor
23. The MacKintosh Man
24. Sinful Davey
25. In This Our Life
26. We Were Strangers
27. The Bible: In The Beginning...
27. Phobia: A Descent Into Terror 

In This Our Life (1942)

NOTE TO VIEWERS: Cinema Stripped Down will now only show the sections "The Plot" and "The Film" when the author deems that these sections are relevant enough to be featured. If the film has a boring, or uninteresting history, THE FILM will not be featured.

WELL, THAT WAS MELODRAMATIC 

There we go. There's that word: melodrama. Hold on, let me say it again: melodrama. Has it sunk in again? Well I really can't stress it enough, this film is so melodramatic. I mean, I can handle melodrama as much as the next man, but this is just too much. This is pretty much the definition of melodrama, there's fighting, drama, cheating, romance, crying, insanity, murder, heat and a southern Gothic sense to it. And what makes In This Our Life bad? The fact that at every moment of plot you almost want to roll your eyes, and that some of the things that happen make you want to heckle the characters into oblivion.

What can the actors do? Well, pretty much nothing. Bette Davis and Olivia de Havilland were unfortunately bestowed with the ability to overact in increasingly melodramatic ways. Here, that point is proven. Katharine Hepburn once said of Meryl Streep, " Click, click, click," while referring to the wheels turning inside Streep's head. She meant to say that Streep never inhibits a character, just acts. Here, I believe that quote would be much better bestowed upon Bette Davis. Yep, it's that bad. Sometimes I can tolerate, and even enjoy Davis. But here, she goes way too far.

Her character is that of a woman who ditches her fiancee for her sister's husband and then wants her fiancee back again. She inhibits this shallow, over the top caricature with more over the top. She really overdoes it, and leaves the audience really despise her. Not the character, but Davis. When Davis "acts", she makes the audience really hate her for putting us through this shameful display of pure insanity. That sounds harsh, but I really can't express how I am feeling in any other way. I just got incredibly fed up while watching this film, and Davis was part of that. I'm not saving that Davis was bad, some would say she is amazing, but her style is just not for me, and this film is a great example of why.

Olivia De Havilland also got on my nerves. She just seems to play the same character in everything. She plays the fragile woman who can be counted on roughing it out when it counts. In Gone With The Wind she does this, in The Snake Pit she does this, and in In This Our Life she does this. What I find aggravating about the whole thing is that she recognizes this, but she keeps doing it! Was she typecasted in this role, or was this just who she was? I know for sure that she was not such a saint, so perhaps this is all she was thought to do. I am sure she had great versatility, but here it just isn't recognized.

In the supporting roles,George Brent and Dennis Morgan play two men who were in love with both lead actresses at one point. While both their portrayals were soapy and over the top, I did really reel that Morgan was the best part of the film. His portrayal actually felt more than slightly realistic.  He offered up a believable performance in a very unbelievable film. He seems like a desperate soul, a lost person who can't quite find his place, and also misses his chance when he does strike something goal. Though he has limited screen time, I would have most definitely rather seen more of him than anyone else.

The film also has a subplot involving racism (Slight Spoilers Follow). Bette Davis hits and kills a little girl with her car and then blames it on the black family friend. He goes to jail, and the people are very prejudiced against him, and only our heroic team of Olivia De Havilland and George Brent can save him from Davis's careless accusation. This part of the film is actually handled quite well, and Huston treats the subject with grace, something I've never called him before. Indeed, it's heavy handed, but compared to the rest of the film it's To Kill a Mockingbird.

Although the actors really make this a complete and utter melodrama, they wouldn't be able to do anything without a truly terrible script. And boy do they get one. Every plot point is handled clumsily, and it makes the whole thing feel like a huge soap opera. This film is so over the top that it's one technicolour camera away from Sirkian heights of melodrama. Indeed, the script gives the film some pure and utter soap. It's not even funny, it's barely enjoyable (yes, I can easily see how one can enjoy a soap opera). A lot of this is mainly due to the script.
And oh god the score! It is so anonymous and uninteresting. It is almost as if someone held a jam session with a string quartet used to playing on "As The World Turns". It could have been worse, but if there is one thing I've picked up from Huston, it's that almost none of his films feature a good score. The cinematography is also quite anonymous. Unlike Huston's previous effort, which was full of great shots, In This Our Life is content with a couple close ups, but mainly just relies on a master for the whole film. It is the very definition of substance over style.

And now when I get to talk about Huston. In his sophomore film, John Huston turns 180 degrees away from his first film: "The Maltese Falcon". That film was interesting, and created a mood unlike anything seen here. Oh sure, this film has a mood, the kind of mood you expect to see on daytime television. The only two main reasons Huston made it was to help his friend Howard Koch, as this was one of his first screenplays (and then he wrote Casablanca), and to keep close to Olivia de Havilland, whom he was entangled with romantically at the time, and whom he later beat up Errol Flynn on the behalf of.

Overall, what is this film? Well, to tell you the truth, it's pretty bad. It has it's moments, and for that it isn't terrible. But still, it's pretty bad.

In This Our Life,
1942,
Starring: Bette Davis, Olivia de Havilland and Dennis Morgan
Directed by John Huston
5.5/10 (D+)

RANKED:
1. The African Queen
2. The Dead
3. The Man Who Would Be King
4. Moby Dick
5. The Asphalt Jungle
6. The Red Badge Of Courage
7. The Night Of The Iguana
8. Key Largo
9. The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean
10. The Misfits
11. Beat the Devil
12. Reflections in a Golden Eye
13. Fat City
14. Wise Blood
15. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
16. The Unforgiven
17. Under The Volcano
18. Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison
19. Victory
20. The List of Adrian Messenger
21. Annie
22. Prizzi's Honor
23. The MacKintosh Man
24. Sinful Davey
25. In This Our Life
26. We Were Strangers
27. Phobia: A Descent Into Terror