Deanna
There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.
JohnHowardReid
Producer: Buddy Adler. Executive producer: Rita Hayworth. A Beckworth Corporation production, released through Columbia Pictures Corp. Copyright 28 January 1953 by the Beckworth Corp. New York opening at the Rivoli: 24 March 1953. U.S. release: September 1953. U.K. release: 7 September 1953. Australian release: 6 August 1953. Sydney opening at the State. 9,218 feet. 102 minutes.NOTES: A domestic rental gross of nearly $5 million brought "Salome" into second place behind "From Here To Eternity" as one of Columbia's top box-office attractions of 1952-53.Previous cinema Salomes include Theda Bara in 1918, Nazimova in 1922, and Diana Allen also in 1922. The plot of the Allen film which attempts to whitewash Salome is closely paralleled by the present version. Nazimova's celebrated interpretation, on the other hand, was based on the Oscar Wilde play. COMMENT: Although it certainly exhibits some of the shortcomings common to the Hollywood religious epic, "Salome" has some unexpected assets and in no way deserves its poor reputation. The first problem of course is the script. It always is. Here we have not only a gross distortion of the climactic events so as to whitewash Salome's character, not only the introduction of a spurious love interest in the person of Stewart Granger's fictitious Commander Claudius, not only a too facile desire to introduce historical quotes (complete with King James' English) into somewhat forced, mannered and even amateurish dialogue; but a whole approach that seems at once pompous but irreverent, florid yet frightened, verbose yet laughably inaccurate, grandiose yet simple-minded, religious but impossibly naive.What can you rescue from a mess like that? Quite a lot, actually. Some of the playing is nothing short of inspired, particularly Charles Laughton as the lecherous Herod, Judith Anderson as the designing queen, Arnold Moss as her acquiescent adviser, and Basil Sydney as the stubbornly thick-headed Pilate. Even Rita Hayworth is occasionally quite credible. Certainly no-one could complain that she doesn't make an alluring Salome, even if her long-awaited dance (to a rather pedestrian score by Amfitheatrof) is a considerable let-down and disappointment. Sir Cedric Hardwicke is a boringly wooden Caesar but fortunately his role is small. Badel makes an energetically frenzied John the Baptist, though his theatrical posturings seem often as ridiculous as his dialogue. It's hard to keep a good director down, even with a hokey script. Dieterle can still show the style, the pace, the tension and the atmosphere of his famous 30's biographies, particularly when helped out by cleverly inter-cut second unit footage, eye-catching sets and costumes, and Charles Lang's grandly low-key, almost film noirish cinematography. Duning's brassy music score is also a major asset.The film cost a lot of money, but for once it's right up there on the screen, not wasted on discarded footage, studio overheads, grossly super-expensive star salaries and other intangibles.
sports7272
The things that you're liable to read in the bible it ain't necessarily so.Does anyone really believe what it says in the bible?And for that matter who cares?Films are made as entertainment,not documentaries of fact So Rita Hayworth is past her best,but 10th rate Rita is better than first rate any actress can achieve today.The film is worth watching as a colourful spectacle,especially the dance of the seven veils.What Jean Louis can do with a few saris and a few thousand yards of silk deserves an Oscar.
st-shot
This Technicolor extravaganza built around "Gilda" Hayworth's big dance number as a watered down Salome is one dishonest and cowardly piece of commerce to behold. With its attractive stars, superb supporting stage and film actors as well as a highly respected director of epics (Wilhelm Dieterle) and a master cinematographer (Charles Lang) Salome stumbles along for the entire duration with two left feet.Taken from the familiar Biblical story of John the Baptist and later spiced up by Oscar Wilde the producer's (Rita being one) tweak it a little by downplaying Salome's culpability and having the rap to pinned on mom (Judith Anderson) allowing Salome a chance to get religion and Stew Granger as the film ends on a highly solemn and spiritual note with the camera tilting to the sky where the words "This was the beginning" are emblazoned. This after the stunning Miss Hayworth finishes her incestuous two step striptease grinding up a marble staircase in front of her step father, besotted Charley Laughton with Dame Judith smirking approval. The marketers must have thought 'something for the whole family'.Where do we begin? Dieterle who directed Laughton in Hunchback as well as the unique fantasy world of a Midsummer's Night Dream fails to engage or create anything of authenticity or sincerity from performers to the cold barren sets and women draped in fabric colors usually reserved for Christmas wrapping. The B&W mastery of Lang ( Ace in the Hole, The Magnificent Seven) is no where evident in garishly lit scenes dripping gold and bleeding red.Hayworth and Grainger are beautiful and brittle with Rita softening Salome; reducing what should be driving vengeance to limpid piety. Cedric Hardwicke isn't around long enough to chew scenery but Alan Badel as a tripped out JtB is. Laughton's Herod is the biggest travesty of all as he monstrously overacts, spending most of his time waving his arms or gripping Roman columns, his utterances unconvincingly peppered with pregnant pauses and hammy anxious expressions. He along with almost anyone else involved in this pitiful production one might well argue deserve the same fate as the Baptist. Salome is an out an out abomination.
