New Ben Hur DVD on the way

Looks like I'm the lucky winner of the new 4 disc DVD boxset of Ben-Hur. One of my favourite blogs, Jeffrey Overstreet's Looking Closer ran a competition and I came out a winner. This really shows the generosity of heart that is so typical of Overstreet. Given the subjective nature of the competition he didn't need to pick a winner that would involve him posting to another continent. Kind of makes me doubly grateful.


For what it's worth, one of the things that most excites me about this boxed-set is that it also contains the full 1925 version of Ben Hur (itself a remake of an earlier 1907 film). Plus there is a whole host of other extras that look very exciting too.

Matt

N.B. - This post was back-dated to when it first occurred - i.e. it's not a true blog post!

Genesis Films

My article on Genesis films is up at the Open Heaven website. We're about to embark on a series of talks on it so I thought I would catch up on them all and see if I can whet anyone's appetite to watch some of them as well. We'll use a few clips in our gatherings and I plan to use the various takes on Cain and Abel at our cell group (home group).

Matt

N.B. - This post was back-dated to when the review was first posted - i.e. it's not a true blog post!

Living Christ/Bible Films

I've been trying to find some information on "Cathedral Films" in general and the Living Christ/Living Bible series in particular.

IMDB lists the production date for this series as 1951. It also seems that there were two series made about the same time with similar names.

1 - The Living Christ series which was made about 1951, and starring Robert Wilson, 12x30 minute episodes discussed below.

2 - The Living Bible Series was made about 1952 (so unrelated to the paraphrase of the bible), and seems to star Nelson Leigh, 24 or 26 episodes. Some of these are available on DVD.

I've found this interview which relates to the casting of "Bob" Wilson in I Beheld His Glory. This may indicate that this film was shot before the series and that Day of Triumph was shot after it. There are plenty of details on this page which includes a few pictures from a number of other films including From the Manger to the Cross

Matt

N.B. - This post was back-dated to when much of it was first noted down in a discussion at the Arts and Faith discussion forum

The Living Christ Series - Intro

I first came across this series of films at the Arts and Faith Discussion Forum about a year ago when someone posted a link to some spoof Jesus film shorts. Sadly it appears these are no longer available.

There were 4 clips and two of them definitely seemed to star Robert Wilson from I Beheld His Glory (1952), but the other two I couldn't quite work out. The question of the identity of the actor/film of the 2nd and 4th clips in this link has bugged me for almost a year.

I'd also heard of a film called the Living Bible, which I'd not really been that interested in and assumed was a 70s tie in with the translation / paraphrase of the same name. Nevertheless, it came up cheap on eBay the other day so I bid for it.

It turns out that what was actually on the discs was something called The Living Christ series, and this was indeed the film used in the spoofs above. It would appear that the 12 half hour episodes started being released individually 1951 as films shown to church youth groups. The films were made by Catholic film company "Cathedral Films", and became so successful that they created two film spin offs, I Beheld His Glory in 1952, and Day of Triumph in 1954, although the IMDB lists both films as being 1953.

Day of Triumph is often credited with being the first American Jesus "Talkie", coming 27 years after Cecil B. DeMille's The King of Kings in 1927. This may now be due a revision depending on how you classify a "film". If it is just moving pictures shot onto celluloid then the first Living Christ episodes deserve that claim. That said Day of Triumph was the first American Jesus film to gain cinema release in the sound era, and was also the first film in that era that was feature length, so I'll leave it to the reader to decide.

I am surprised that neither Campbell and Pitts's "The Bible on Film" nor Kinnard & Davis's "Divine Images" seem to mention this series.

Matt

N.B. - This post was back-dated to when much of it was first noted down in a discussion at the Arts and Faith discussion forum