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 

The List Of Adrian Messenger (1963)

THE FILM:
Having just completed the exhausting film that was to become Freud, John Huston set his sights on a new project, The List of Adrian Messenger. The script had been written by Tony Veiller, whom Huston had worked with before. It was a little thriller, set mostly on an estate in Ireland, a favourite place of Huston's. It also involved a climax taking place during a foxhunt, one of Huston's favourite activities. It also seemed like the kind of slight thriller he could make quickly and with little expense.

He cast the American George C. Scott as the British Anthony Gethryn, the film's lead. As a marketing gimmick, he cast many famous actors in cameo, under heavy disguise. At the end of the film, each actor reveals themselves. The film was made quickly, and cheaply. It didn't set the box office on fire, however, and by then Huston was in Mexico shooting The Night Of The Iguana. Today, the film is barely remembered, and when it is, it is often the central gimmick remembered, not the film itself.

THE PLOT:
Anthony Gethryn is enjoying a weekend in the country with an old flame, Lady Jocelyn, and her cousin Adrian Messenger. Then, after a foxhunt, Anthony is pulled aside by Adrian, and Adrian gives him a list of names. He tells Anthony to look into their names, but doesn't give any reason why. Adrian then leaves for America, but en route his airplane explodes, and he dies. Anthony begins to look into the names, before realizing that most of them are dead.

He then meets with a man who tells him Adrian's last words. Suddenly, he begins to realize that someone wanted him dead, and everyone on his list as well. Along with Jocelyn and a man named Raoul, Anthony slowly begins to realize that a massive conspiracy is underway, but it is too late?

THE CRITICISM:
In order to make a good thriller, one must have three components. A plot that contains an amount of mystery, a lead with whom you can cheer for, and a feeling of palpable dread. The List of Adrian Messenger has none of the above. Does that make it a bad movie? No, but it certainly doesn't make it a good thriller. It appears to be Huston just sitting back and resting. Indeed, when I read the plot summary, I thought the premise was very good indeed. It sounded exactly like the stuff good thrillers were made of.

Of course, it wasn't. Huston wasn't nearly involved enough to give the film any edge whatsoever. The entire affair felt as if Huston was just going through the motions. Despite the outstanding cast, Tony Curtis, Burt Lancaster, Robert Mitchum, Kirk Douglas, Frank Sinatra, Dana Wynter, and George C. Scott, only Scott, Wynter and Douglas are on screen for any measure of time. In fact, most of the film rests on the shoulders of Scott.

George C. Scott is an outstanding actor, but here, despite the initial shock of "it's George C. Scott with a mustache!" he doesn't really do much with the character. The British accent is admirable, but even it soon wears thin (along with the mustache), and in fact his character is surprisingly dull. It doesn't help that he is given some really bad lines ("This is not the work of many men, but one man who is many men!"), but a veteran actor like Scott should have been able to flush out his performance.

Dana Wynter was perfectly suited to be furniture, and her performance is wooden as a board, but not because of her. It isn't fault that her character is perfectly useless. There is a connection between her and Scott's character mentioned, but it is dropped after a few lines. Jacques Roux, who plays Scott's sidekick also suffers from having nothing to do. The juiciest part of the film goes to Kirk Douglas, as the man who is many men, and he is good. The thing is, he isn't given enough time to show his evilness, and the film's lightweight tone doesn't help him either.

The celebrity cameos never elevate above gimmick, and the film doesn't showcase the cameos enough for the audience members to guess who is who. The script had promise, but under Huston's monotonous direction, the plot never really excites. In fact the film's tone is so light, one could mistake it for a satire, similar in tone to Beat the Devil. The first half really makes this seem as if it was actually what Huston wanted. However, when the second half begin, it is made clear that this is not a comedy, much to the film's detriment.

The makeup used to hide the celebrities is actually not half bad, but it makes the skin of the mask look very old, and plastic like. Still, it is convincing enough to hide many celebrities, and it makes for an interesting enough ending. The film's sets are really basic, and even the climax is kind of boring. The plane crash scene looks intensely amateurish, especially when compared to a similar scene in Hitchcock's Foreign Correspondent in 1940.

The cinematography is one note, and never becomes that interesting. The foxhunting scenes are the best shot scenes of the film, but the sport itself is rather confusing to me. Which brings me to the direction by Huston. Lax doesn't describe it. Anyone could have shot this film, and none of Huston's usual trademarks can be seen. It is a very boring exercise, only because no one seemed interested in the film, except Kirk Douglas. And even Douglas wasn't allowed to do much because Huston wasn't doing much.

In short, what could have been a great thriller falls short of it's target. It still manages to entertain, but not nearly as much as it could have.

The List of Adrian Messenger,
1963,
Starring: George C. Scott, Kirk Douglas and Dana Wynter,
Directed by John Huston,
6/10 (C-)

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. The List of Adrian Messenger
20. Annie
21. Prizzi's Honor
22. Phobia: A Descent Into Terror