5
The Jesus Films: The 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s—Jesus’ Absence from the Mainstream and Evangelical Jesus-Figures
As it turned out, Cecil B. DeMille showed the last full film portrait of Jesus for almost thirty-five years. Perhaps it was this emphasis on the divinity of Jesus that led to the British censor, in the second decade of the century, to state that direct portrayals of Jesus were not desirable on-screen. Perhaps it was the consequence of this atmosphere of reverence but, after DeMille’s The King of Kings, close-ups of Jesus’ face disappeared from the commercial screen in English-language cinema for over three decades. As will be seen in a subsequent chapter, in the Spanish-speaking world, Mexico offered several Jesus films in the 1940s and 1950s.
The Wandering Jew
The legend of the Wandering Jew was relevant in the atmosphere of the rise of Nazism in the 1930s and world attitudes, and Christian attitudes, toward the persecution of the Jews.
Adapted for the theater by E. Temple Thurston, The Wandering Jew was filmed twice by British director Maurice Elvey—once as a silent film in 1923, then as a more lavish production in 1933 with German actor Conrad Veidt. The Wandering Jew offers a basis for discussion between Jews and Christians about its Jewish background, the Christian context, and how the film was interpreted in terms of anti-Semitism.
In the latter version,
Veidt plays Matathias, a Jew of Palestine who is on the road to Golgotha when Christ is brought to crucifixion. When Matathias expresses a lack of concern for Christ’s fate, Christ tells him, “You will remain here until I return.” Because of Christ’s words, Matathias has been cursed with immortality. He cannot die, he cannot grow older, and he must periodically relocate to another community (and establish a new identity) so that nobody will notice that he never ages. The film is necessarily episodic: we see Matathias trying to blend into one community; then the narrative abruptly jumps ahead to another century as Matathias has relocated yet again.1
According to F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre, who comments on the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) blog,
This film’s strangest (and most interesting) aspect is the decision not to depict Christ directly . . . neither by image nor by voice. During the early scenes, Christ is apparently located just outside the right-hand edge of the film’s frame; Veidt and the other actors turn in profile to the camera and stare at something offscreen. . . . When Christ speaks, we do not hear an actor’s voice . . . instead, we see words (in a very ornate type font) superimposed directly in front of Veidt’s face, spelling out Christ’s malediction. There is an eerie glow from just beyond the frame, apparently representing Christ’s aura.2
In addition, says MacIntyre, “Most versions of the Wandering Jew legend (including the classic science-fiction novel “A Canticle for Lieb-owitz”) state that the Jew is still wandering, right up to the present day, because (so they claim) Christ has not yet returned.” MacIntyre says it would have been interesting if this film had included an epilogue set in the England of 1933 in which the Wandering Jew is still alive.3
Another IMDb blogger says,
The Middle Ages segment is the second one; it is followed by the Renaissance segment and finally the Spanish Inquisition, in which the Jew is burned as a heretic. . . . The decision to end the Jew’s life in this period has to do with the period when the film was made, the early ’30s, when the Nazis were once again asking “Are you a Jew?” and condemning people based on the answer. . . .
The original story would be that the Jew is to wait “until Christ comes again,” i.e. the Second Coming, the Last Judgment. The film script modifies this to “until I come to you again,” and the plot shows us the slow progress of Matathias from a man who would rather see his beloved dead than alive with her husband, to an understanding of the Christian hope in life after death and a less selfish love (in the Italian story, where he decides not to kill his wife as a gesture of possession when she wants to become a nun), to an actual Christ-like role in the Seville sequence, where a whore defines her relationship with him as that of Mary Magdalene to Christ. . . . So Christ “comes to him again” as he is being burned as a heretic.
Interestingly, his heresy consists of (1) blasphemy, in saying that Christ might be hard put to recognize his own, i.e. the inquisitors themselves, since they are not Christlike, and (2) refusing to deny his Jewishness. Christ, of course, was himself brought before the High Priests on a charge of blasphemy. The film sort of finesses the problem of baptism (in the version I saw, there was no evidence of the Italian son’s being baptized, but the friar says that he has gone to Heaven when he dies), which is what the Inquisitors are in principle asking Matathias to undertake.
However, the decision is presented to him not as being baptized in Christ but rather as denying his Jewishness, ceasing to be a Jew, and in the early ’30s the ringing declaration—by a Christ figure, “I am a Jew!” must have been pretty strong stuff.
The end of another British film of this period starring Veidt, Jew Suss, is similar; Suss in fact has a choice to declare himself not Jewish, since in fact his father was a local aristocrat, but he opts to die a Jew, representing the people he grew up with. Both Suss and Matathias are heavy-duty sinners (lust, avarice, and pride to say the least) and their Jewishness is not “normalized” . . . but they redeem their sins by their concern for the poor, the outcast, and, in Jew Suss’s case, specifically Jews in a pogrom situation.4
A postscript: In 1948, L’Ebreo Errante (directed by Goffredo Alessandrini) starred Vittorio Gassman. It was an adaptation of the novel by Eugene Sue about the Wandering Jew. Gassman portrays Mathieu Blumenthal, a banker, who is arrested with some friends and is sent to a Nazi concentration camp. He escapes from the camp with Esther (Valentina Cortese). He is prepared to sacrifice his life for the sake helping others.
Golgotha
While there was no commercial Jesus film between The King of Kings and King of Kings from English-speaking industries, there was an exception in France with Julien Duvivier’s 1935 Golgotha. The film was a ninety-five-minute drama, filmed in black and white in the Billancourt studios in Paris, with a prominent cast of French actors, including Jean Gabin as Pilate, Harry Baur as Herod, and Robert Le Vigan as Jesus. The score, by Jacques Ibert, is given credit prominence. It is all-pervasive, more modern than what came to be accepted as “biblical scores.” Duvivier’s principal Jesus film precedents were the silent short films made for religious education purposes.
Given the fascism of the period and anti-Semitic feelings in Europe and in France (and, in fact, the explicit anti-Semitism of the star, Robert Le Vigan, during the war and his subsequent trial and imprisonment for fascist collaboration), it is surprising that the film was made. The blame for Jesus’ death is laid directly at the machinations of the high priests. Judas is also a prominent and striking presence, disappointed with Jesus and his not rousing the revolution and in league with the priests.
Golgotha was also known in the United States as Behold the Man (Ecce Homo), from Pontius Pilate’s words to the crowd when Jesus came before him, scourged and crowned with thorns. The action of the film takes place from the procession of palms as Jesus entered Jerusalem and finishes with post-Resurrection sequences. This means that Jesus does not preach, although he does declaim after the cleansing of the Temple that people render to Caesar what is Caesar’s and his words are quoted during his trial. There are no miracles, though many sick are shown reaching out to him during the procession and on his way to Calvary.
Duvivier may have been influenced by DeMille in his choice of actor for Jesus and in directing him to display an almost complete otherworldliness in his performance, communicating directly with others more indirectly (except for his words to Peter about his denial and after the Resurrection, or in sending Judas from the Last Supper). There is a brief intimate moment when he meets Mary on his way to Calvary and he falls and she says, quietly, “My son.” Otherwise, he stands and moves like an icon, stern, sometimes indicating feeling through his eyes or by gestures, as when he holds the whip above him after routing the buyers and sellers in the Temple.
Duvivier makes his point about Jesus being human but filled with divinity by not showing Jesus directly for almost twenty minutes into the film, heightening audience expectation. There are subjective point-of-view shots as the camera becomes Jesus’ eyes as he looks at the waving crowds during the procession. Then the audience catches a glimpse of him. Finally, he becomes a character in the film. The audiences of the time may have expected this kind of aloof, rather silent Jesus, more an image from art than from life.
The rest of the treatment is “realistic.” Shots of Jerusalem and the Temple are used extensively throughout the film, especially the inner courts of the Temple, the rooms of the Sanhedrin, the open courts before Pilate’s palace, and Herod’s court. This realism contributes to the impression that the film is trying to show the credibility of the situation; the people’s expectation of a Messiah to rise up against Roman rule; the reaction of the high priests in protecting their own power, currying favor with Pilate, and wanting Jesus out of the way.
The sense of realism is enhanced by Duvivier’s visual compositions—many close-ups of faces (and sometimes resting on a face for an unexpected length), the placing of faces at different angles, the camera turning from one face to another, or the framing of two or three faces together. By contrast there are a number of long shots—of Jerusalem, of Judas hanging himself, of Calvary. Sometimes there are overview aerial shots. The contrast of light and shadow is used to moody effect. Duvivier has drawn on art traditions but now makes the cinema versions of this art the beginning of a cinema tradition for Jesus films. Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Il Vangelo secondo Matteo later developed these traditions.
The Jesus who emerges from this film is human but he is—at least in character, demeanor, hopes, and suffering—rather more than human. He enjoys the triumphant entry into Jerusalem but then immediately disappears from his followers, dampening their expectations of a revolt against the oppressors. He swings his whip in the Temple, sending tables flying and initiating a stampede of scurrying animals—some of this shown from Jesus’ subjective point of view—then stands on a table brandishing the whip and declaiming to a crowd about the Temple being a house of prayer. He is shown reverently at the Last Supper (with a glimpse of preparation by his mother and the other women, the roasted lamb on the table), shot from outside the upper room through a frame, the tables in a square u-shape with Jesus at a corner (not quite da Vinci). He speaks about not drinking until he is in his kingdom. John asks who the traitor is and Jesus indicates Judas. He speaks directly with Judas and with Peter.
The Agony in the Garden is brief, with Jesus laying his head on a rock in anguish and then waking the sleeping apostles. It is very dark in Gethsemane when the soldiers come and Judas kisses Jesus. The drama is from John’s Gospel when he questions the soldiers and some of them fall back. Judas is later seen wandering among rocks. He returns to the open square to throw back his thirty pieces of silver. Once the Passion narrative begins, there is much more reliance on direct Gospel texts: the silence before Annas and Jesus being slapped, the false witness (and the witnesses floundering with their testimony) about destroying the Temple and rebuilding it, the transferral to Caiaphas and the rending of his garments, and the declaration that Jesus has blasphemed (though the screenplay simplifies this to Jesus simply admitting that he is the Christ of God).
A great deal of attention is given not only to Pilate but to Pilate’s wife, her advice to him in how to govern as well as her dream and sending him a message to be wary of condemning Jesus. There is a long Herod sequence where Jesus is silent and mocked by Herod and his hangers-on. Herod is presented bejeweled and somewhat effete (and he could have said, “Walk across my swimming pool”). Pilate questions Jesus about his kingdom and about truth, brings him before the crowd, says “Behold the man,” releases Barabbas, and washes his hands at the forefront while Jesus is seen standing in the background. Pilate also writes the title of King of the Jews.
Jesus is scourged, but the audience sees only two short sets of blows, the rest being offscreen; the crowd counts as they gleefully watch through the bars of the prison, one woman then fainting. Jesus is mocked by the soldiers, crowned with thorns, and a white cloak put on his back.
All these Gospel sequences are familiar and presented quite directly. The way to Calvary is quite long in proportion to the rest of the film, with quick references to Jesus lamenting with the women of Jerusalem, Simon of Cyrene carrying the cross, and Jesus walking with a placard around his neck. As mentioned, Jesus meets his mother. On Calvary it is the same, the roping and nailing, the raising of the cross, the assurance to the good thief, and Jesus saying to John, “Behold your mother.” Jesus forgives his killers and, offering himself to the Father, dies.
One of the features of Golgotha is the attention given to the Sanhedrin, its composition, the disputes, the role of this council in supporting Judas and his payments. Annas and Caiaphas certainly dominate the Sanhedrin and have access to Pilate. They are vindictive at Jesus’ trials and rouse the crowd against Jesus. They are present at Calvary to see their plot through. They are seen covering their tracks with the soldiers and explanations after Jesus’ burial. Duvivier also places a great deal of importance on the crowds—and there are frequent crowd scenes both in long shot and in close-up. The crowds rejoice with their palms. They gossip and spread news and rumors. They turn fickle, enjoy the scourging, and are vociferously compliant with the wishes of the high priests. They jeer and boo. They continue their mockery on Calvary.
Then Golgotha turns apocalyptic in the manner of Matthew’s Gospel. The sky darkens except for lightning flashes. Clouds swirl. The earth shakes. The Temple rocks. The crowds flee. To this extent, Matthew’s version of the Passion is the most filmic.
Duvivier gives attention to the Resurrection. The camera is inside the tomb, the stone is rolled away. The Resurrection sequences move more rapidly: The women seek Jesus and hear an angel’s voice (feminine?). Jesus appears to the disciples on the road to Emmaus and they hurry back to Jerusalem. Jesus shows his wounds. Then the apostles are back at the Sea of Galilee where Jesus appears and asks Peter to profess his love and, with sheep visible, urges him to feed his flock. Then, surrounded, Jesus speaks the final words of Matthew’s Gospel, for them to preach the good news. And he is gone.
There is a cinematic effect at the end as two crosses are carried down the hill, one left standing and then shown in close-up.
Given the status of the director—he was one of France’s most important at the time—and the subject, it is surprising that there was not another Jesus film in Europe for another thirty years, until Pasolini.
The End of the World, La Vie Miraculeuse de Therese Martin, The Last Days of Pompeii, and Barabbas
The way of the cross to Golgotha is glimpsed in the 1935 The Last Days of Pompeii, which was produced in the aftermath of Cecil B. DeMille’s saga of Nero and the early Christians, The Sign of the Cross. A young boy, Flavius, is healed by Jesus and becomes a disciple and an adult Christian. There is a chance encounter as Jesus goes to Calvary. However, the scenes with Christ (who is not visible on-screen except in a visionary way at the very end) relies on the massed choir effect. There are also some chronological difficulties as Pontius Pilate (Basil Rathbone) is present in 79 AD at the eruption of Vesuvius (and still mindful of his washing his hands of the death of Jesus), though tradition has it that he killed himself in the late ’30s AD.
Jesus appears on the cross in a prologue to Abel Gance’s science-fiction film The End of the World (1931). Initially, it seems to be a scene from Calvary, but the camera draws back and it is a stage version. There are some Jesus moments in La vie miraculeuse de Therese Martin (The Miraculous Life of Therese Martin), a 1930 version of the young nineteenth-century Carmelite saint directed by Julien Duvivier (Golgotha), where the suffering Jesus appears to Therese and the silhouette of Jesus carrying his cross appears on the wall of a church. A close-up of the emaciated Jesus, crowned with thorns is seen in E voi chi dite che io sia: I Gesu del cinema.
Alf Sjoberg made a film version of Par Lagerkvist’s novel Barabbas in 1953. It had location photography in Israel and Rome. It was also in competition at the Cannes Film Festival. Comment was that it was removed from distribution when Dino De Laurentiis re-made it in 1961. Jesus is not a central presence in the story of Barabbas, but he is listed as a character in the cast. The themes of Jesus and Barabbas are made explicit in the subsequent version.
The Great Commandment
In 1939 Rev. James K. Friedrich produced The Great Commandment, an eighty-minute feature set in 30 AD and focusing on life in a small village “between Jerusalem and Jericho” that was a center for Zealots. It was directed by Irving Pichel and starred some Hollywood actors, including John Beal and Albert Dekker. The American accents make the film seem too contemporary for non-American audiences as does some of the dialogue (“Is this your idea of a joke?”). The musical score sometimes anticipates the scores of Miklos Rozsa for King of Kings. The film plays like an effective costume drama of the 1930s.
The initial information is about Pilate, his oppressive laws and imposition of taxes. The focus is on two brothers, one a hothead who wants revolution now and dies for it, the other a student of the scriptures under his authoritarian rabbi father who is looking for a strong leader. When the second brother hears of Jesus, he imagines that he will have an army and rid the country of Romans. He journeys to Galilee, meets Andrew, and listens to Jesus (especially texts from Matthew about taking up one’s cross as well as the beatitudes). Jesus also heals a blind man. When Joel offers his sword and allegiance, Jesus tells him that those who live by the sword will perish by it. Befriended by Judas who persuades him that Jesus could be talked into revolt, he returns to his village where his father, skeptical and sneering, asks about the greatest law and is answered by the parable of the Good Samaritan. This response has a profound effect on Joel who, after the Romans massacre the Zealots, puts Jesus’ teaching about loving enemies into practice by tending to the wounded centurion. The village is spared while Joel is interned for his own safety. When the centurion comes to free him, he has just put Jesus to death and is amazed that his life was saved by a disciple of the man he had crucified. There is a romantic subplot, which, after some tangles, leads to a happy ending.
Jesus is not seen on-screen. Rather, his preaching, healings, and parable are voiced offscreen by director Irving Pichel, because Joseph Breen, administrator of the Production Code, raised difficulties with a full-on presentation of Jesus. Although made only twelve years after DeMille’s film, it shows the strength of cinema techniques developed during the 1930s and is more akin to the 1961 King of Kings. Jesus has a strong and dignified enunciation (with the use of “thee” and “thou” language), and although he is present only after an hour of the film, he and his message make an impact. The film was released in 1941.
The Lawton Story, The Prince of Peace, and The Pilgrimage Play
During the late 1940s and early ’50s, some American church organizations did make feature films of Jesus. In the late ’40s, The Lawton Story was filmed in Oklahoma. It showed how the citizens of Lawton prepared for a Passion play, its effects on their lives, and the play itself. (Scenes were later edited for The Prince of Peace, which had an international distribution amongst church groups.)
However, there was something of a breakthrough in screen presentations of Jesus in The Pilgrimage Play in 1949. It was directed in Hollywood by studio director Frank R. Strayer, who, in the late 1930s and early 1940s, made twelve Blondie films. However, The Pilgrimage Play was not a studio production, and it did not receive mainstream release. It was a filmed play of the life of Jesus, but what made it different was that Nelson Leigh played Jesus fully on-screen rather than a voice offscreen or the visuals being limited to a hand or an arm as in the biblical films of the 1950s. And it was made in color.
Leigh’s Jesus is suitably serious, smiles slightly sometimes, but is played in the grand manner of the superior rabbi rather than in any more personalized way. The framework of the film is having Peter in prison recounting the life of Jesus before he himself is executed. The scenes are more like tableaux than action, and the screenplay consists of large chunks of the Gospels recited in a solemn way as if this is how Jesus spoke all the time. This image of Jesus would have corresponded to the devout theological perspectives of the period, an emphasis on the way that the divine influenced the human in Jesus. Another factor for those who saw the film when it was made is that this was the first talking Jesus in color. There was no precedent, and it was just over twenty years since Cecil B. DeMille’s The King of Kings with its Jesus in silent film mode.
Audiences on the lookout for interesting differences in Jesus films will notice the strong emphasis given to the role and influence of Nicodemus, especially at Jesus’ trial. Another feature of Jesus’ trial is the calling of Judas as a witness, but Judas is excluded by Nicodemus, who quotes the law that someone who betrays another cannot give testimony.
The film has a great deal of Jesus’ teaching, some miracles, a da Vinci–like Last Supper, and some grim moments of the Passion (though, of course, everything pales in the retrospect of The Passion of the Christ).
The emerging television programs in the United States began to dramatize biblical stories. An example is a 1952 Studio One performance of The Nativity, directed by Franklin Schaffner (who went on to win the 1970 Oscar for Best Director for Patton) and based on the Miracle Plays that were written in the Middle Ages and performed in marketplaces and churches. (Both The Pilgrimage Play and The Nativity are in the public domain and can be found on the Internet Archive.)
I Beheld His Glory
In 1952 James K. Friedrich produced a fifty-five-minute drama called I Beheld His Glory using a flashback device: a centurion (played by George Macready) is sent by Thomas to tell the story of Jesus (Robert Wilson) to a group of men. They have heard stories about him but do not really know the truth about him. The centurion tells the story of Jesus from his arrival in Jerusalem to his appearance after the Resurrection. The film includes the Last Supper; Jesus’ arrest, trial, and Crucifixion; his words from the cross; and his appearance to Mary Magdalene. There was some criticism that the small budget meant some poor backdrops and scenic effects. Robert Wilson played Jesus face-on, in a way which would not be commercially acceptable for another ten years. I Beheld His Glory is an elaboration of a series of thirty-minute films on the Gospels.
The Living Christ Series and The Living Bible Series
DVD technology has enabled contemporary audiences and students to see material prepared for church exhibition and for television release from the early 1950s. Particularly useful is The Living Christ Series, which led to I Beheld His Glory. It is readily available in the United States.
While mainstream audiences may find the films too devout and may remember Sunday school classes, the productions have a strong impact today on religious groups. As has been mentioned, the sets are limited, with a number of painted backdrops. The models of the Temple and of Jerusalem are obviously models. However, the text of the Gospels is used often quite effectively (though some of the performances make it sound somewhat stilted at times). There is a similar use of the text for Jesus (The Jesus Project) twenty-five years later. But, when the writers elaborate some of the Gospel episodes—say, the Magi’s discussion with Herod (who has clearly not been briefed on the scripture passages the Magi quote), Herodias discussing politics with Herod Antipas and her plotting with Salome, or Peter explaining his denial of Jesus—the drama is solid and enhances both the text and the audience’s understanding of the stories.
There are twelve episodes in The Living Christ Series.
Another limitation is the small budget and the limited camera work, although this is less of a difficulty for small-screen viewing. There are many close-ups and even more fixed camera shots that last for a long time. This tableau style means a concentration on dialogue and on verbal interchanges rather than on dramatic action.
This concentration is more noticeable with Robert Wilson’s performance as Jesus. Up until that time, there were no real talking film comparisons, and Wilson and the filmmakers had to be pioneers in deciding how Jesus should look and sound on-screen. These films came a decade before Jeffrey Hunter as the first all-talking Jesus on-screen and in color.
Wilson brings great dignity and bearing to his performance, looking rather older than thirty to thirty-three years of age. He is very serious in demeanor but not unapproachable (as in the sequence where the centurion comes to beg healing for his sick—and surprisingly elderly—servant). It is the speechifying that makes him look and sound more like the Jesus of Sunday school expectation than a warm, live, and authoritative Jesus. Wilson declaims. Everything is an utterance (though the Cana encounter with Jesus’ mother and turning the water into wine has more mellowness). He is obviously the master, the teacher, the rabbi, the healer. Wilson’s performance suffers in comparison with performances of a range of actors that were to follow, but selections of The Living Christ’s presentation of Jesus are well worth a look.
While James Friedrich’s company, Cathedral Films, made The Living Christ Series, Family Films made another series with similar intentions and style, The Living Bible (1952). Three years later Family Films made Acts and in 1957 an Old Testament series. The actor portraying Jesus in The Living Bible Series was Nelson Leigh, who had played Jesus in The Pilgrimage Play in 1949. There were twenty-four episodes, also available on DVD in the United States.
Catholic Father Patrick Peyton produced a number of films in Hollywood with film-star friends using the stories of the decades of the Rosary. The IMDb has some credits for these films, noting three episodes, but there may be some confusion in identifying the correct films here, mixing The Living Christ Series and The Living Bible Series. However, one of Father Peyton’s episodes from 1951 is Hill Number One where a chaplain in the Korean War tells the Jesus story to his men and scenes are dramatized. (This episode now has some fame because James Dean appeared briefly as the apostle John.) The Family Rosary Crusade also made a feature on Jesus’ Passion, The Redeemer (1959), directed by the son of Joseph Breen, Joseph Breen Jr. He also used the conventions of the time in not showing Jesus in close-up, relying on the voiceover technique, with Macdonald Carey speaking the Gospel words in the English version. The cast was Spanish.
It should be noted that the information gained from a Google search and from the IMDb is not always reliable. There seem to be some mix-ups between Family Films (The Living Bible Series) and Family Theater (Father Peyton’s company). Bloggers also make comments on The Living Christ Series (made by Cathedral Films), complaining that some of the material was too Catholic (for example, on Mary and Jesus’ infancy), assuming it was a Catholic production when in fact it was not.
Day of Triumph
More ambitious was Friedrich’s Day of Triumph (1954). The tradition for presenting Jesus on film was that of the popular art of the nineteenth century. This tended to be sentimental and romantic—even kitsch. Here Robert Wilson portrays Jesus fully—quite well at the beginning with a certain strength and ruggedness. As the film moves toward the Passion and Resurrection, he becomes more stolid and stilted (perhaps considered by the producers “holy”).
As with Jesus Christ Superstar, Jesus does not appear centrally but the emphasis is on Judas. With the background of the Zealot movement in Palestine at the time of Jesus, Judas is presented as a Zealot and his betrayal of Jesus as a device to trigger off a Zealot revolution. This is certainly an interesting interpretation of Judas, who is presented generally sympathetically.
The film was codirected by Hollywood actor-director Irving Pichel and John T. Coyle (who had worked on The Living Christ Series and I Beheld His Glory), and the film features Lee J. Cobb as Zadok, Joanne Dru as Mary Magdalene, Mike Connors as Andrew, and Lowell Gilmore as Pontius Pilate. It also contains a blend of the expected celestial chorus piety with some vigorous sequences of Jesus and of the times of the origin of the New Testament.
Himlaspelet
During the 1930s and in Hollywood in the 1940s, while directors did not make Jesus films, there were a number of entertainments with a spiritual dimension, allegories about encounters with God and with the devil, judgment, heaven, and hell: Here Comes Mr. Jordan, Heaven Can Wait, The Devil and Daniel Webster. In Sweden, Alf Sjoberg, who collaborated with Ingmar Bergman, made Himlaspelet in this same vein. A man’s wife is suspected of witchcraft, and so he goes on a quest to vindicate her, including meeting with “Our Lord.”
The Power of the Resurrection
This is an hour-long film made in 1958 by Harold D. Schuster, a noted Hollywood editor and director of many films (including the family favorite My Friend Flicka) who was involved with Moral Rearmament at this time. By the late ’50s, Hollywood had released Quo Vadis, The Robe, and The Big Fisherman and was about to release Ben-Hur. Audiences were becoming more familiar with commercial Jesus films. In The Power of the Resurrection, a young man is about to be executed as is Peter (played by Richard Kiley). To comfort him, Peter tells his own story with dramatization of Gospel episodes as well as the Passion of Jesus.
Kiley brings dignity to the role of Peter, showing the transition from ex-fisherman to brash apostle to spirit-filled preacher to elderly martyr. He also has a fine speaking voice. So does Jon Shepodd, who portrays Jesus very much in the same way that Robert Wilson did in I Beheld his Glory—traditional in appearance, dignified, and eloquent. Jesus appears in the Last Supper sequence quoting excerpts from John, as well as briefly in the trial scene and a strange Crucifixion scene—strange in the sense that the budget must have been small and the three crosses are filmed from the back as if from a room. However, with the title of the film, the post-Resurrection scenes are longer and stronger, with Jesus appearing to the apostles and confronting Thomas.
There is a device of an interrogator who talks with both Judas and Peter during the last week of Jesus’ life. Judas is disappointed in Jesus’ peaceful approach to the political situation. Peter, on the other hand, is enthusiastic about Jesus and describes the miracle of the loaves and fishes.
This film is very similar to those made by Father Patrick Peyton at the time for Family Theater (though these films were reticent in showing Jesus face-on as does The Power of the Resurrection).
The Blood of Jesus and Go Down, Death
When The Great Commandment was filmed in 1939, it was a white American enterprise. However, two years later, a film was released that was produced by and for African Americans. It was The Blood of Jesus. Written and directed by its star, Spencer Williams (who achieved some fame with his later television series Amos ’n’ Andy), it was an attempt to make specifically religious films, moral and morale-boosting films, for its niche audience. Anyone who has seen any representation of an African American funeral in a film will be familiar with the emphasis on the word of God, the preaching, and the highly participative hymn-singing shown in The Blood of Jesus.
The film opens with a sermon, processions, and a baptism by immersion of the central character, Martha (Cathryn Caviness). She tries to persuade her husband, Razz Jackson (Spencer Williams), who has been out hunting, to “get religion.” Tragedy quickly ensues as Razz puts down his gun. It slips, goes off, and wounds Martha, who has been contemplating a picture of the Sacred Heart hanging in the bedroom (to the accompaniment of “Were You There When They Crucified My Lord?”). As she lies dying, there is talk of God’s will and miracles, and her friends kneel by her bed (now to the accompaniment of “Give Me That Old Time Religion”). As she dies, we hear an organ and see processions of people walking toward the pearly gates. However, an angel with wings and dressed in white appears at Martha’s bedside. She rises.
The main drama of the film is an interesting variation on a theology of death and judgment; that is, as a person dies, he or she is confronted by the choice between good and evil, to make a life choice. Martha makes her way to the crossroads (with quotations from the Sermon on the Mount in the background). She is exhorted to walk clear of temptation and beware the hypocrisy of false prophets. But, Satan appears (dressed rather ludicrously like a pantomime devil and performs accordingly, which detracts somewhat from the life choices). A well-dressed man arrives to take care of Martha; he has a new dress and shoes for her. It is Judas who is commissioned by Satan; “Do your stuff,” as he cackles. The angel is still quoting Matthew’s Gospel.
Martha goes to a club (with some extended scenes of dancing, an acrobatic dancer, some women of easy virtue putting cash into their stockings). Martha does not want to take a job in the club, which angers the boss. The beatitudes and the saying on the salt of the earth are heard as Martha looks at another picture of Jesus and prays, “May God have mercy on my soul.”
Martha is chased as she runs away (to the accompaniment of “Run, the devil’s behind you . . . leave him far behind”). At the crossroads she sees the sign with one way pointing “To Hell” and the other “To Zion.” The sign becomes a cross, and a crucifix figure appears. But, the voice of Jesus confronts Martha’s accusers with the words from John 8, challenging the innocent to cast the first stone. Martha crawls to the foot of the cross and prostrates herself (to the accompaniment of “Steal Away to Jesus”). Drops of Jesus’ blood fall on Martha’s face. She wakes, alive, feeling her face and gazing on the picture of the Sacred Heart. Razz and the neighbors rejoice (to the accompaniment of “The Good News Chariot’s Coming”).
The contemporary poster claims, “A mighty epic of modern morals!” While it is not that, nor is it so well acted or directed, it signifies a great deal about African American faith in these years and the perspective on Jesus’ love, forgiveness, and the role of the Crucifixion and Jesus’ shedding his blood to save the human race. This strand of American filmmaking is not well known and did not influence mainstream filmmaking. While the 1970s saw a number of crime thrillers in the Shaft vein, black directors did not really emerge in any serious way until the 1990s.
Go Down, Death was Williams’ religious film of 1944, from the celebrated Negro author, James Weldon Johnson. This is much more of a melodrama in which a club boss plans to get rid of a devout preacher who is engaged to his cousin. The preacher has been condemning the club, so the boss sets the preacher up with three women who come into his house to tempt him (with sex and alcohol); two photographers are also lurking. The boss’ mother supports the preacher and confronts the boss. She also prays, gazing at her late husband’s picture on the wall (to the accompaniment of “Nobody Knows the Trouble I Feel”). The boss threatens her and she collapses and dies. (In the background of much of the film is Schubert’s “Ave Maria.”) There is talk, as in the previous film, of God’s will, of being in God’s hands. At her funeral, people praise the boss’ mother: “God’s eye was on Caroline and God’s big heart was touched with pity.” In the aftermath of the funeral and quotations from the Book of Revelation (to the accompaniment of “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God”), the boss hears the voice of his conscience challenging him and he goes berserk. He runs into a tree and collapses at “the gates of hell.” The film has some special effects of Satan devouring a sinner as well as re-creations of last judgment scenes with a finale of “Glory, glory, glory . . . , merciful and mighty.”
The theology here is very literal as is the reading of the scriptural texts, but both films reveal the African American experience that embraced Christian faith during the slavery era and that still pervades so much of that culture.
The Blood of Jesus was put on the National Film Registry in 1991.
Notes on Other Titles
Fernandel played the Italian parish priest who clashed with the Communist mayor. As regards Jesus, Don Camillo had a dialogue relationship with Jesus, who spoke to Don Camillo from a crucifix. Since Don Camillo was always getting into scrapes and trying to explain himself to Jesus, Jesus had some very good lines (as when, after being rebuked by Jesus for bribing a football referee, Don Camillo kicks the ball straight into the confessional opening and Jesus calls out, “Goal!”) Mario Adorf played Don Camillo in a British television series in 1981, and Terence Hill (better known for his comedy westerns of the 1960s and 1970s) directed a Don Camillo film and played the role himself (1983).
Notes
1. F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre, “Lush Historical Fantasy,” Reviews & Ratings for “The Wandering Jew” (blog), Internet Movie Database, July 31, 2002, www.imdb.com/title/tt0024750/reviews.
2. MacIntyre, “Lush Historical Fantasy.”
3. MacIntyre, “Lush Historical Fantasy.”
4. jshoaf, “Early Death of the Wandering Jew,” Reviews & Ratings for “The Wandering Jew” (blog), Internet Movie Database, November 12, 2005, www.imdb.com/title/tt0024750/reviews.