The Greatest Story Ever Told | | Cast : | Max von Sydow, Charlton Heston, Dorothy McGuire | | Director : | George Stevens, Jean Negulesco, David Lean | | Studio : | MGM/UA Video | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen, Dolby | | Released Date : | January 01, 1965 | | DVD Released Date : | March 06, 2001 | | Language : | Unknown (Dubbed), English (Dubbed), French (Dubbed), French (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), English (Original Language) | | Audience Rating : | G (General Audience) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | June 03, 2005 | | Summary | Wonderful Message; Breathtaking Cinema | Content
 | This movie is one of the most beautifully filmed and the restoration to its original splendor attests to this. It is faithful to scripture and sets forth the message of Jesus in a classic style.
The film itself is generally well done, although it falls somewhat short in its sanitized depiction of the passion. However, most of the film is absorbing and the numerous "celebrity" cameos no longer (as time goes by) are the distraction they once were. John Wayne's "Truly this man was the Son of God" centurion is an exception. Claude Rains as Herod the Great, Jose Ferrer as Herod Antipas and (surprisingly) Ed Wynnn as the blind man healed by Jesus give powerful performances.
The movie is worthy of anyone's library and is a great companion to The Passion of the Christ. |
| Rating | | | Date | June 01, 2005 | | Summary | THE GREATEST MOVIE EVER MADE | Content
| This is the most incredible movie about Jesus Christ. It is the perfect gift for anyone you know and care about. Most of the lines come directly from the Bible. |
| Rating | | | Date | March 29, 2005 | | Summary | Max Von Sydow Hits The Mark | Content
| The documentary that comes with the 2 disc DVD reminds us that George Stevens had Max Von Sydow in mind for many years, since shortly after finishing up THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK. He took in a screening of Ingmar Bergman's JUNGFRUKALLAN (1960) which featured Von Sydow in a sizeable part. This is the same movie which Wes Craven re-made as THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, and Von Sydow played the father of the abused girl who takes a terrible revenge on her rapists. Thus, although Tore (the part essayed by Von Sydow) is a 14th Century Christian, he gets to show off a lot of fearsome acting chops and winds up not entirely sympathetic. And very un-Christlike, so it is funny that Stevens stuck with his casting inspiration through thick, thin, and studio resistance.
For his part, Von Sydow had to interrupt his series of intense collaborations with Bergman to take the time out for the arduous Arizona shoot of GREATEST STORY. Bergman was not pleased with losing his leading man for such a long period. The result was that no Bergman film between WINTER LIGHT (1963) and HOUR OF THE WOLF (1968) employed the services of Von Sydow, who had been slated for a big role in Bergman's THE SILENCE, as well as his flop comedy ALL THESE WOMEN. The SILENCE was largely re-written to increase the size of the women's parts, and it was during +this time that he wrote the all-female PERSONA, the first of Liv Ullmann's nine films with Bergman.
But in return, we received a wonderful gift, Von Sydow's controversial portrait of Jesus in a performance that looks better every year. |
| Rating | | | Date | March 20, 2005 | | Summary | Majestic, beautiful, but alas a Protestant life of Jesus | Content
| George Stevens has produced a sumptuous, heroic life of Christ for the big screen, but he takes too many liberties with Jesus' words, inserting statements like "salvation comes by faith alone" into His mouth. Of course Christ never said any such thing. In fact the only place in Scripture where the words "faith alone" occur is in James 2 and there only to *reject* the notion that man is saved by faith alone. Viewers seeking a more faithful depiction of the life of Christ are better off with "Jesus of Nazareth".
Side bar: The then-unknown Max Van Sydow plays a short-haired, pencil-thin-mustached Jesus. Festoon him with a beret, and he'd look like a saxophonist in a jazz quintet. The first thing my nine-year-old said during the opening scene was "Whoa! He's got real-l-l-ly short hair!"
Side bar 2: And why does Jesus never smile in this movie? I can't recall seeing so much as a grin in a single frame.
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| Rating | | | Date | March 03, 2005 | | Summary | Second Worst Biblical Movie Ever! | Content
| This ranks down there with "Jesus Of Nazareth" as my least favorite Biblical movies.The horrible acting and dialog are totally devoid of feeling.My favorite in this theme,is still "King Of Kings",and though Jeffrey Hunter plays another blue-eyed Jesus,in my opinion this is still the ONLY Biblical movie with a truly likeable Jesus character and that whole film really touches me,where the above two mentioned,make me feel nothing!The acting is so bad that both of those actually make me feel aggravated! Sorry, but "King Of Kings" rules for me! |
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