In a new world where naked people ate apples that made them ashamed of their nudity, one man decided to build an enormous boat. All this and more can be seen in 1966's The Bible: In the Beginning, director John Huston's adaptation of the Book of Genesis starring John Huston as Noah. He's the best part of his own film, too.
Huston also narrates the film and performs the voice of God. He has a fine voice for it, too, authoritative yet also familiar and amicable. It's why I thought he was actually a good Gandalf in the Rankin/Bass Hobbit. So it's mostly him we hear at the start, guiding us through footage of seas and forests and animal herds, 'till on the--what was it?--sixth day, God created Michael Parks.
The man who would one day feed heroin and butterscotch to Audrey Horne before getting gunned down by Quentin Tarantino and George Clooney looked surprisingly elfin as a young Adam. Huston avoided nudity by copious use of shadow which makes Eden seem a dark, foreboding, kind of alien place. Things start to feel more down to earth when Cain and Abel show up, played by Richard Harris and Franco Nero, respectively, though Abel gets wacked so quickly I didn't recognise Django. Harris gives a performance as Cain that's so stylised it seems like interpretive dance. It's only when Huston himself shows up as a head-scratching Noah that it feels like the movie finally has human characters.
A lot of money was spent making arks, so much so that despite being a popular film all over the world, The Bible didn't make back its budget. It hasn't remained much in the public memory, either. After the Flood, George C. Scott takes over as Abraham and Ava Gardner plays Sarah. Scott seems very out of place, a preoccupied general sparing a few moments in his schedule to hear what God has to say. Gardner is better, exhibiting tormented grace as she's forced to attend her own servant bearing the child that she could not.
Peter O'Toole shows up, very creepy as the Three Angels who come to inform Abraham of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.
It's a visually amazing film and John Huston brings some welcome humanity to it. I wish he'd brought some more.
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