Review of King of Kings

This is a biblical movie, one of many that was made in the mid-fifties and sixties. It accounts, in a somewhat light way, the life of Jesus from birth to the ascent to heaven and, thus, runs counter to the general tendency of focus only on the birth or passion of Christ. On the other hand, the film makes a very interesting use of peripheral biblical characters (Herod, Salome, Pilate, Barabbas etc.) to make a movie with more movement than one would expect, which prevents it from appearing slow and drawn. The problem of doing this is the indispensable resource for creating scenes that aren't in biblical accounts, but cinema does a lot of that, it's normal and I deal well with it, as long as creative freedom doesn't contradict the biblical story. Nicholas Ray assures the direction in a competent way and Orson Welles makes a great narration of the events. The cast is mostly composed of illustrious strangers (at least for me) which reinforces realism, probably in a conscious move by the director. The cast usually does a convincing and enjoyable work, especially Jeffrey Hunter, who gave birth to Jesus, and Robert Ryan, who played John the Baptist. The environment, costumes and scenery are convincing, beautiful and look good on the screen, but they have no comparison to other biblical films such as "Ben Hur" or "Quo Vadis", where everything is bigger and done in greater detail.