The Bible: In the Beginning... (1966)

That was an excellent one.

How sad is this?

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

I remember reading the Leonard Maltin review and how he said that this was definitely a time where you should read the book over the movie. I personally found this movie to be just okay. Despite the name "The Bible" it doesn't describe that much of the Bible. It's only the book of Genesis. In fact, why not just name this movie Genesis? You could make sequels that cover all the other books in the Bible.That being said, there isn't anything too bad about this film. It's mostly well acted, but it has a major flaw. It doesn't really have anything unique about it at all. When you take a story as famous as the Bible that's been adapted so many times, you need to have something extra. I guess it was faithful, but it came off as bland. It's still got some good acting, it's just nothing to remember. **1/2

As hilarious as the book!I wonder why religious people doesn't believe in Harry Potter stories or J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord Of The Rings stories!!! these stories are way much stronger, logical and ethical than this ancient hilarious story.We don't need religion for have a better life, just take a look in to our current world, more religion=more corruption, more poverty, more stupidity, more disaster, more lie, more uneducated people... just negativity!And about professional things, Acting was just kinda OK for that era, cinematography was great (picture quality), sound works was very good, score was very good, directing was kinda good with lots of errors...Nearly 3 hours... what a waste of time, but I just laughed some esp. in the moments when GOD was explaining how he created this world in 7 days and BLAH BLAH BLAH, penguins in the Ark! oh I don't wanna waste your time there is millions of non-senses in all the religious books.I believe in Science and myself and the ethics, actually I'm Atheist (Vegan & Straight Edge) and I can admit religious people aren't ethical at all just hypocrisy and non-sense...Live peacefully!

John Houston's three hour epic about the book of Genesis in the Old Testament was to be the start of a series of movies covering the so- called "Good Book" but only covered the first 3/4 of that first part of the bible. Expensively made, it failed to earn back its cost and other entries were canceled. It is a pity because Huston gives a valiant effort to tell the story of creation according to the bible and the first thousand years afterwords.Huston narrates, does the voice of God and even plays Noah. Opulent photography and an excellent musical score add to the multi-part story which covers Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, who begat whom, the great flood and ultimately the creation of the Hebrew nation with Abraham's story.The story of creation is very touching and Adam's introduction to Eve is profound. Curious Eve didn't quite know her apples, and this leads to their banishment from paradise. Jealousy turns brother against brother, Noah deals with human ridicule and the unpredictability of nature in a humorous sequence surrounding a natural disaster. Then there is the story of Abraham, lead by an excellent George C. Scott with Ava Gardner as his barren wife. The will of God makes the story almost tragic as Abraham must risk heartbreak to please the Lord. If there is one continuous theme, that is the lesson that mankind is not to understand the motives of our creator and to try and make it as good as we can with the gifts he has handed over to us.The lessons here are told without finger wagging morality lessons so the audience can watch this without feeling like they have been admonished or judged. The special effects ate outstanding, especially in the flood and Tower of Babel sequences which are just as good and less headache inducing as today's overwrought films.As for the Sodom and Gomorrah sequence, as this came out as the production code was changing, I found it to show a city of perversion that deserved at least a good cleansing, if not total annihilation. There are all sorts of sexual innuendos presented, including homosexuality and bestiality. I have never seen a gay community as perverse as this one, and the confrontation with the angels is definitely an implication of rape, not consensual relations. I can only guess that the lack of morality in these wicked cities had less to do with the types of sex going on rather than the fact that it was without any sense of moral decency behind it and the lawlessness needed to be dealt with. Audiences will see things in the way their own mind perceived it to be, so this sequence and biblical story will always create controversy. For the most part, this film is extremely well acted and sincere with Huston and Scott particularly excellent. The episodic structure makes this seem a lot shorter than it actually is. For religious people, this may not be a proper replacement for its source material, but it is certainly an excellent visual aid.

About the making of the 1959 Christian epic Ben Hur, director William Wyler made a quip along the lines of "It takes a Jew to do this sort of thing properly". However, looking at this tale of Old Testament fire and brimstone directed by non-believer John Huston, one could say what it really takes is an atheist. You see, you have a problem when trying to make a cinematic presentation of the first portions of the bible, which are pretty much a litany of genocide, misanthropy and dubious morality in which it appears God is to be endured rather than praised. How do you present such a story in humane and accessible terms? The Bible: In the Beginning was written by noted Quaker playwright Christopher Fry. Fry does two very important things – firstly, he arranges a handful of bible stories into one satisfying arc, in which God's vindictiveness towards humanity is made a running theme, ending with the final act of mercy in the story or Abraham and Isaac, making this one story rather than a collection. The second thing Fry does is to avoid doing a realist job. Rather than doing what most of the ancient world epics before this did, filling in gaps and fleshing out characters to create a kind of biblical drama, Fry uses only what is actually in the bible. He doesn't, for example, try to imagine what Cain and Abel might have argued over as children, or what bedtime stories Sarah told to Isaac; what little dialogue there is is either lifted directly or adapted closely from Genesis itself. Whether or not it was Fry's intention, the effect is to keep the narrative at the level of a distant, mythical tale. It also leaves the story open to a broad visual interpretation.This is where Huston comes in. Huston makes The Bible: In the Beginning a real feast for the eyes, from the kaleidoscopic creation scenes, to the gorgeous glimmering light in the garden of Eden, to the arc towering over the plains like a Dali painting to the cryptic use of darkness and shadow in the city of Sodom. By and large, Huston's vision is one of mysterious beauty, like gazing upon some ancient artefact. I say "by and large"; the latitude afforded Huston by the Fry script also allows him to do the Noah's arc story with a touch of slapstick comedy. He originally wanted Charlie Chaplin to play the part of Noah, and I so wish Chaplin hadn't turned him down. Nevertheless, Huston himself steps into the breech and does a passable Chaplin-esquire act, and this segments comedy is gentle enough to fit in with the overall tone of solemnity. Huston's collaborators are crucial to the overall effect too. Of particular note is the musical score by Toshiro Mayuzumi, at times playfully Mickey-Mousing the action, at others matching the imagery in its surreal grandeur. The best of the acting performances is certainly George C. Scott's powerful turn as Abraham. Scott is unashamedly theatrical, but again this is in line with the style of the production, going for extravagant presentation rather than dramatic realism.The Bible: In the Beginning was the very last of the wave of ancient world epics that began back in 1949 with Cecil B. DeMille's Samson and Delilah, but it is also quite probably the best. Rather than trying to put a recognisable human spin on the story and sermonising directly at its audience, Huston's epic takes the bible for what it is: a work of mythology, on the same level as The Iliad or The Nibelungenlied. And when taken as a mythical saga rather than an apologist piece for God at his most belligerent, it can be viewed as a picture of incredible power and beauty.