The Robe

The CinemaScope adaptation of Lloyd C. Douglas' best-selling novel is alternately impressive, faltering, and finally disappointing. Despite the magnitude of such early scenes as the Roman slave market, the dusty plains of Galilee, and the splendor of imperial Rome, this wide sweep of spectacle lacks meaning without a devout testament of faith.

Like its Hollywood predecessors, The Robe translates a simple Biblical theme into extravaganza. It tells the story of Marcellus Gallio, the man who executed Christ, and of his eventual conversion to Christianity. Gallio, expertly played by Richard Burton, wins Christ's robe in a dice game beneath the Cross. He sees the robe first as a symbol of his own fear, later as the means to his salvation.

Victor Mature, as the Greek slave Demetrius, is believable in a role similar to many he has played before. Jay Robinson, however, is scarcely plausible as a crotchety and petulant Caligula. While many have thought this emperor a monster, Robinson makes him a caricature of a contemporary egghead.

But if The Robe is familiar in formula, its format is different. While the CinemaScope process does not create a sense of depth so great as in stercoscopic films, one does feel the solidity of both actors and sets. The curving screen, however, two-and-a-half times as wide as it is tall, presents unique problems of composition. Director Henry Koster carefully avoids small grouping of actors, but when close-ups are necessary, vast expanses of background distract to the right and left.

Koster in one instance obviates this difficulty by placing one character in front of a gnarled tree whose splayed branches conveniently fill the excess space. Success by gimmick can only occasionally be used, otherwise it becomes obvious and annoying. This consideration would seem to proscribe the use of CinemaScope for the filming of epics. The Robe, with its Biblical sweep, is easily adopted to the requirements of the large screen. It is doubtful, though, that this medium could be used successfully with intimate boudoir comedy.

Perhaps the most significant fault of the new process is its failure to inspire in the audience a sense of closeness, intimacy, or identification with the action on the screen. Undoubtedly The Robe was produced primarily for pageant value. But one might expect from a film upon which so much time, energy and money were devoted a convincing insight into the psychological and spiritual conflict which are the bases of a religious awakening. This The Robe clearly fails to do. It graphically and boldly displays pagan evil but does not explore its consequences in emotional and spiritual terms.