Forumrxes
Yo, there's no way for me to review this film without saying, take your *insert ethnicity + "ass" here* to see this film,like now. You have to see it in order to know what you're really messing with.
Portia Hilton
Blistering performances.
Allison Davies
The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.
mspolk2006
I have loved this movie for a long time, it was something that I saw when I was young and just loved. The story of Ruth and Naomi is one that my mother always said was a great example of what love really is. Ruth leaves behind all her life in Moab to follow Naomi to a country and a people that she knows perhaps little or nothing about.I have seen that some people review or make comments about it not being 'biblical' and I think that it doesn't detract from the point that the movie brings across. Sometimes people want to make the heroes and heroines of the Bible too holy, they were people, struggling with life as we do now. The faith of Ruth and the love that she and Naomi share is so apparent in this movie.This movie takes license with where Ruth comes from, having her sold in childhood to the local religion that sacrifices children every year to their god. There is nothing to state where Ruth came from in the Bible only that she was married to Mahlon and that he and his father and brother died.This movie is so beautiful and well filmed, Elena Eden, is so beautiful as Ruth and Peggy Wood as Naomi. The movie, I have always found after it's first 45 minutes, seems to revolve around these two women. Naomi's protective love of Ruth and vice versa, their loyalty to each other and how the bitterness of Naomi's loss is healed by the things that happen to the both of them.The story is slightly changed, but the story has the point of who Ruth is, a woman who was born worshiping a foreign god and who came to understand and love Jehovah.It is a great movie and I have always thought that if nothing else is accurate about it, the fact that placing your faith in God will always be rewarded.Also, when Naomi prays for Ruth, it is probably one of the most beautiful and selfless prayers ever. It is the kind of prayer that a Mother prays for her daughter, it always give me chills to hear it. My dearly departed mother, prayed for me like that once and I am still reaping the blessings to this day.
rosalavra1
At the age of 14, I idly turned on the TV in the afternoon and saw this movie just beginning. I felt drawn to see it as I was brought up on Bible stories and knew the story of Ruth pretty well. I was intrigued to see how it would be dramatised.I was fascinated at the movie's expansion of the Book of Ruth's simple account of Ruth's Moabite beginnings, the evil of this pagan civilization which sacrificed its own children to Moloch. This part of the movie is in fact well authenticated by other parts of Scripture.I was impressed by the beauty of the actress playing Ruth, and by her portrayal of the beauty of Ruth's character. I was immediately aware that some license was taken with the beginnings of the relationship between Ruth and Boaz. In the Biblical version he was certainly never hostile to her! However as the love story progressed it had exactly the character of the loving kindness of the kinsman redeemer exemplified in the Biblical Boaz.So much did this quality of deep love based on respect and loving kindness which cares for and wants to look after the beloved impress me that it actually became a standard against all future love stories, both fictional and real, were to be measured by me. For quite a number of years it was almost an unconscious influence, but in my mid 20's when I started seriously considering marriage,it surfaced and became a requirement for me in the man I would marry, and in the love we would have for each other. Somehow this love of Ruth and Boaz seemed much more REAL than almost all the romances I would see in movies or read about.In fact the whole story of Ruth became a pattern for my life, after I returned to faith and sought a life in which God would be my Guide.So much so that I now live in Israel, not far from where Ruth came to live with Naomi . I did find my "Boaz", who had been in some ways so clearly exemplified for me in "The Story of Ruth". I still vividly remember the movie and am grateful that , even though it took some small "liberties" with the Biblical story, it was true to the spirit of the Book of Ruth!
Dejael
(*May contain spoilers*) This fine 20th Century Fox production directed by Henry Koster (The ROBE, 1953) is a timeless classic of hope, faith and inspiration based on the book of Ruth in the Bible. The characters are well defined, the cast is superb, and the writing of the script is both literate and meaningful, handling this subject with a deft sensitivity. Add to that the elaborate production values of the Fox studio, color, and wide-screen CinemaScope, an uplifting, rousing music score, and you have a well-mounted film of style and substance. Pretty young Elana Eden shines in her only starring role as Ruth, the Moabite girl who loves a Jew named Mahlon (handsome, stalwart Tom Tryon), marrying him moments before his untimely death, and befriends his elder kinswoman Naomi (Peggy Wood in a finely crafted performance) who embraces her as Ruth becomes part of the family. Now Ruth must choose between the beguiling but mischievous Tobit (Jeff Morrow sparkles in a fine character role), or handsome young stud Boaz (burly Stuart Whitman in an outstanding part) as they both vie for her affections. The film's story is a true celebration of life overcoming the adversities of death and sorrow, and faith overcoming the difficulties of calamities and complications due to ethnic barriers (the Jews were not normally allowed to associate with the Moabites). It also illustrates the conflicts caused by pagan idolatry. The marriage of Ruth to Boaz is a triumph of faith and love, for through this union would come the lineage of King David of Israel, and ultimately, the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth, a thousand years later. Highly recommended Biblical classic is literate and faithful to the original story in the Bible.
Greg Couture
Twentieth-Century Fox assembled some rather felicitous elements for this production: an attractive cast; a reliable director, apparently teamed with a producer whose taste resulted is a modicum of restraint when dealing with those elements of the script that might have lent themselves to the kind of excess favored by C. B. DeMille; production values that weren't meant to rival the blockbusters of that era, such as "Ben-Hur" and "Spartacus," but still looked pretty handsome on the CinemaScope/DeLuxe Color screen; and one of Franz Waxman's typically lovely scores, which sounded especially good over the stereo sound system at the Santa Monica, California theater where I saw this during its post first-run release.I recall enjoying this film for giving Peggy Wood, then in her late-sixties, a rare opportunity to act on the big screen. I'd been one of her many fans ever since tuning in every week to watch her warm and wise incarnation as "Marta Hansen," the matriarch on one of the earliest and best long-running TV series, "Mama" (based on a beloved best-seller, successfully adapted to the Broadway stage, and eventually filmed, under George Stevens' direction as "I Remember Mama" in 1948, starring Irene Dunne in one of her most memorable screen appearances). As Naomi in "The Story of Ruth," Miss Wood's modest and very human performance gives this film a distinction that garnered many positive reviews. I also recall that TIME magazine had great fun in ridiculing a pagan Moabite temple dance performed by a phalanx of bodybuilders, apparently embarrassing Fox into deleting that sequence, since that scene of those graceless guys clumping around wasn't in the print I saw. I wonder if it will be restored in the upcoming DVD release.
