Salome is yet another film about a peripheral biblical character. All we know about her is that when John the Baptist was in Herod Antipas's dungeon awaiting sentence, she danced for the king and John's head got served up as the main course at a banquet on a silver tray.
From that stringy bit of knowledge that the Good Book gives us, Columbia Pictures constructed a plot for their number one sex symbol Rita Hayworth so she could do a strip tease for Charles Laughton. That in itself was enough to sell tickets no matter how ludicrous the story.
And it's one of the more ludicrous Bible based stories ever brought to the screen. The story of course is that Herod Antipas had committed adultery with his brother's wife and Salome's mother and she later became his queen. Here she's played by Judith Anderson in her best Mrs. Danvers manner.
The story opens with Salome returning from Rome where the Emperor Tiberius played by Cedric Hardwicke has sent her packing because she wants to marry a Roman. His action's left her bitter against the occupiers of her country and to make matters worse, she's accompanying the new Governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate played by Basil Sydney and a stalwart centurion who is Stewart Granger.
The fly in the ointment is this nasty preacher, John the Baptist who goes around saying awful stuff about Judith Anderson and Charles Laughton. He's played by Alan Badel who was introduced in this film. Badel was roughly contemporary with Hugh Griffith in British cinema and both had a pair of the wildest eyes this side of Jack Elam. Allowed them both to be cast as fanatic types. It serves Badel well as John the Baptist.
What I love about this story is that everybody's got an agenda going here except Pilate and the Baptist. Salome wants to protect mom, Herodias wants the Baptist dead, Herod wants him to just go away and shut up, and our centurion is a stealth Baptist follower soon to be following that cousin of his from Nazareth.
All that leads up to the events described in the Bible. Everybody goes through the motions here, they all know this film is a Thanksgiving special. Especially Charles Laughton who's done lascivious before on the screen, in The Barretts of Wimpole Street, in The Paradine Case, in The Strange Door. Laughton has lascivious down to a science and with Rita Hayworth as the lust object who could blame him.
As for Rita she must have felt like Maureen O'Hara did, that other Hollywood redhead who got cast in all these exotic roles where her titian tresses were jarringly out of place.
She must have wondered why she came back after this one.
From that stringy bit of knowledge that the Good Book gives us, Columbia Pictures constructed a plot for their number one sex symbol Rita Hayworth so she could do a strip tease for Charles Laughton. That in itself was enough to sell tickets no matter how ludicrous the story.
And it's one of the more ludicrous Bible based stories ever brought to the screen. The story of course is that Herod Antipas had committed adultery with his brother's wife and Salome's mother and she later became his queen. Here she's played by Judith Anderson in her best Mrs. Danvers manner.
The story opens with Salome returning from Rome where the Emperor Tiberius played by Cedric Hardwicke has sent her packing because she wants to marry a Roman. His action's left her bitter against the occupiers of her country and to make matters worse, she's accompanying the new Governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate played by Basil Sydney and a stalwart centurion who is Stewart Granger.
The fly in the ointment is this nasty preacher, John the Baptist who goes around saying awful stuff about Judith Anderson and Charles Laughton. He's played by Alan Badel who was introduced in this film. Badel was roughly contemporary with Hugh Griffith in British cinema and both had a pair of the wildest eyes this side of Jack Elam. Allowed them both to be cast as fanatic types. It serves Badel well as John the Baptist.
What I love about this story is that everybody's got an agenda going here except Pilate and the Baptist. Salome wants to protect mom, Herodias wants the Baptist dead, Herod wants him to just go away and shut up, and our centurion is a stealth Baptist follower soon to be following that cousin of his from Nazareth.
All that leads up to the events described in the Bible. Everybody goes through the motions here, they all know this film is a Thanksgiving special. Especially Charles Laughton who's done lascivious before on the screen, in The Barretts of Wimpole Street, in The Paradine Case, in The Strange Door. Laughton has lascivious down to a science and with Rita Hayworth as the lust object who could blame him.
As for Rita she must have felt like Maureen O'Hara did, that other Hollywood redhead who got cast in all these exotic roles where her titian tresses were jarringly out of place.
She must have wondered why she came back after this one.