The Greatest Story Ever Told
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Carroll Baker, Ina Balin, Max von Sydow, Michael Anderson Jr., Pat BooneBrand: MGM
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; Spanish (Dubbed)
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, NTSC, Special Edition, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 199 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2001-03-06
Audience Rating: G (General Audience)
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
Movie Reviews of The Greatest Story Ever Told
Movie Review: My favorite life of Christ movie ever for Easter and Christmas
Summary: 5 Stars
With his THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD (1965, UA), producer/director George Stevens set out to create a simple, straight-forward life of Jesus Christ that would stand the test of time as the definitive Biblical epic. He worked on the screenplay with James Lee Barrett and Carl Sandburg. He recruited a great all-star cast, some in major roles and some cameos. And he scouted locations all over the American Southwest, finally settling on locations in Nevada, California's Death Valley, and Arizona's Monument Valley. To him these rugged mountains and valleys seemed closer to the Holy Land of Christ than Israel-or Morocco or Tunisia or Spain-did in the early 1960's.
Forty years later, in a gorgeous new 65mm Ultra Panavision, 6-track stereo roadshow print running 195 minutes, THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD remains my favorite Easter movie about the life and teachings of Christ (Max von Sydow in the performance of a lifetime). Yes, it's a "spot the stars" movie with a terribly wooden John Wayne in one scene, but so is Franco Zeffirelli's acclaimed 1977 TV miniseries. Half of Stevens' cast is relatively unknown to me. I have never found Carroll Baker nor Angela Lansbury. Many of the others are superb cameos, like Ed Wynn, Sal Mineo, Sidney Poitier, Dorothy McGuire, and Joseph Schildkraut. Only a few have big roles, and these are almost all excellent, especially Telly Savalas as Pontius Pilate and Jose Ferrer as Herod Antipas.
The film is uncommonly intelligent and faithful to my life of Jesus, starting with his birth in Bethlehem, baptism in the River Jordan, early teachings, then the spectacular Sermon on the Mount in Monument Valley. By contrast, the Nicholas Ray/Jeffrey Hunter KING OF KINGS (1961) has a brilliant Sermon on the Mount on a hillside in Spain, but gives a prominent role to a fictional Roman general named Lucius and a key role to Harry Guardino as Barabbas. This detracts for me. Barabbas should be a cameo. As for Zeffirelli's impressive production, it is magnificently made, but too long and detailed. Do we really need to spend an hour getting Jesus born, then another half hour getting him to adulthood in a production where I cannot find a Sermon on the Mount? And the charge of a "Hey there" cast in Stevens' film goes triple for Zeffirelli over six-and-a-half hours. Then we have Mel Gibson's THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST (2004) with Roman beating scenes so bloody that I had to literally take a prescription tranquilizer to keep from fainting; and it only gives us the last day-and, like Scorsese's generally first-rate labor of love LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST (1988)-does not have much of a Resurrection.
Stevens, working in mammothly wide Ultra Panavision 70 (2.76:1 on DVD), creates some of the most impressive and beautiful Biblical compositions ever filmed. And the Academy must have agreed. GREATEST STORY won five Oscar nominations, and three were for Cinematography, Art Direction, and Costumes. The unforgettable Crucifixion is lit like a Goya painting, all blues and purples and mud browns. This is the definitive Crucifixion-and the greatest, most exhilarating Resurrection sequence ever right after it: the Mormon Taberacle Choir performing Handel's "Messiah" over color-tinted desert montage.
This 1965 life of Christ deserves way better than Leonard Maltin's mediocre ** ? (out of ****) rating. It is a definitive, painstakingly crafted masterpiece for me that illuminates the life of Jesus, especially when watched at Easter or Christmas time and in one marathon 195 minute letterboxed DVD or Turner Classics screening without commercials. Everyone connected with it, on both sides of the camera, can be very proud of their work. THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD is a movie for the ages.
The double DVD I am reviewing includes a brand-new 30 minute filmmaking documentary, a vintage short documentary, roadshow music and intermission, a photo gallery, and the original theatrical trailer.
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