Not the typical overblown Early Christians Epic you expect from this period. Instead, an episodic Biblical extrapolation (from Nobel Laureate Pär Lagerkvist’s novel) with everyone on their best behavior (well, everyone but a gloriously sadistic Jack Palance), working in a tone as subdued as lenser Aldo Tonti’s restricted color palette. Director Richard Fleischer, a B-pic whiz rarely at his best on A-list projects, keeps the lid on uplift and emotion, even from lead Anthony Quinn (no small thing) as the man chosen over Jesus to be pardoned by a crowd at Pontius Pilate’s Jerusalem court. Unable to fathom why he deserves this, or to process a trade-off that protects him from capital punishment in perpetuity, especially after witnessing the Crucifixion, Barabbas survives a series of encounters over the decades (and all over the Roman Empire) with believers and non-believers. Silvana Mangano, Vittorio Gassman (exceptionally good as his partner in the sulfur mines), Harry Andrews (reasonably effective in the impossible part of Peter), Ernest Borgnine, eventually coming up against Palance in gladiatorial conflict. Lots of intelligent decisions made simply by backing off overstatement (screenwriter Christopher Fry having gotten a lot of that kind of thing out of his system on BEN-HUR/’59, itself tops in the overblown division). Quinn was really batting it out of the park at the time. But with GUNS OF NAVARONE just before, then LAWRENCE OF ARABIA and ZORBA THE GREEK coming right up, this downbeat Christ-crossed-my-path fable gets lost. It shouldn’t.
DOUBLE-BILL: Quinn’s next big religioso, THE MESSAGE/’76, also got lost in the shuffle. Possibly because it had to work around the traditionally camera-shy Prophet Muhammad.
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