David and Goliath (1960)

Serviceable enough Italian produced historical Peplum drawing upon biblical scenario, directed by Spaghetti Western master Ferdinando Baldi at the beginning of his career. Orson Welles glowers and half-whispers his way through a marvelously pointless performance done in only by Goliath himself, who standing about twelve feet tall at 450 pounds is the focus of my thesis on the film.Which is specifically that the Italians -- no doubt limited by 1960 era morality -- made the wrong movie. The scenes with Goliath are its best, and the most enjoyable the one where he is promised command of an army (doesn't care) a roomful of gold (been there/done that) and the prettiest most wholesome women in the kingdom attending to his every bidding. SCORE!The hilarious scene where Goliath sits on a giant throne quaffing a barrel of wine while scantily clad damsels perform a Veil Dance for him should have been the departure point for a much more interesting story exploring just what went down. Though sadly Goliath returns on screen only to slaughter a few guards prior to his disappointingly brief showdown with David. After which the film persists in continuing for a while, missing the point that we weren't dialing in to watch Orson Welles palpitate. We were there for Goliath, and he ruled.

At first glance, the story of David and Goliath may seem to be a good pick for a filmed adaptation of a Bible story - most people know of the story even if they are not religious, and it's a classic underdog making good theme. But thinking about it a little, an obvious problem rears its head - it's a SHORT story. The screenwriters of this movie had the problem of stretching things out to feature film length, and in the process made the story a pretty long and boring one. It's made worse by the fact that there's hardly any action. Also, some gentle humor here and there would have helped as well. Another script problem is that it doesn't get into the heads of the main players very well. David seems to blindly follow God's commands, Goliath is more or less a growling thug, and King Saul (played by a clearly embarrassed Orson Welles) only has a few brief scenes. The look of the movie is okay, but it's not enough to stop you from drifting off to sleep as you watch.

This Italian made sand and sandal epic would probably be long forgotten were it not for the presence of Orson Welles as King Saul. Certainly the man who played David in David and Goliath, Ivo Payer, certainly did not enter the ranks of screen immortals.David and Goliath took as many liberties with scripture as any good Cecil B. DeMille film, but without DeMille's sense of grandeur and spectacle. For instance in this film as a result of the battle where David defeats Goliath and the Philistines are routed, the Ark of the Covenant which the Philistines had captured is returned. Actually those are separate incidents that are not connected at all.Another thing is that at least I've always interpreted David to be a rather callow youth when he was doing his shepherd thing before God sent Samuel looking for him. And he's still a callow youth when he's in battle with Goliath. The old Negro spiritual is called Little David Play On Your Harp, not without reason.Ivo Payer is a rather muscular young man looking like he stepped from of those Italian muscle man epics so popular at the time. Of course the sight of all that bare chested beefcake sent many hearts fluttering in the audience. In that sense David and Goliath is right in the DeMille tradition.The only reason this film is remembered if at all today is because of Orson Welles. Welles at the time was picking up work here and there to finance his own projects. Sometimes it would be something as good as Compulsion the year before, more often it was something like David and Goliath.Still Welles is a consummate professional and he invests Saul with an air of tragedy about him. At the point we meet Saul, God has already decided he's not the man for the job as King of Israel. But Saul is not about to accept that verdict. If he can't beat David head on, he'll try and co-op David by bringing him into his household and matching him up with his daughter.And of course there's Saul's son Jonathan. He's there, but none of the business about a gay relationship between David and Jonathan is in this film. Jonathan knows full well that his father has lost favor with the Lord and he's aware of his father's character weaknesses. He too, befriends David more out of a sense of survival than anything else.English actor Hilton Edwards plays Samuel the Prophet and he comes across as a poor man's version of Finlay Currie. He's the only other English speaking player in the cast besides Orson Welles.David and Goliath will not pass muster with either biblical scholars or with lovers of big screen spectacle. Still fans of Orson Welles will want to see this film to see how much a great talent can lift even a piece of mediocrity to a level of some respectability.

This cheesy but entertaining sword-and-sandal movie has more in common with the muscleman spectacles being made in Italy at the time than it has with the superior Biblical epics made by Hollywood in the same era, such as "Ben Hur" and "The Ten Commandments." The dialogue is stilted, the acting stiff, and the departures from the Biblical narrative make it unsuitable as a Sunday school lesson (i.e., Jerusalem did not become part of Israel until David conquered it after Saul's death; in one scene the prophet Samuel quotes verses from the Book of Ecclesiastes, which hadn't been written yet). On the credit side, the movie has lots of pretty girls (what's a Biblical epic without scantily clad dancing girls?) and an exciting battle scene. Hilton Edwards (billed as Edward Hilton) hams it up amusingly as Samuel, and an alarmingly obese Orson Welles gives a commanding performance as Saul, showing that life can be tough for a working actor even if you're a genius. Aside from Welles, only the sexy Eleonora Rossi-Drago, as Saul's scheming daughter Merab, manages to create a three-dimensional character. Overall, the acting is so poor that circus strong man Kronos, as Goliath, actually gives one of the better performances even though all he does is grunt.