The Greatest Story Ever Told Reviews

As many observes have noted The Greatest Story Ever Told is far from the greatest film ever made. The familiar scripture of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ (Max Von Sydow) is the subject of George Stevens' last film. It's difficult to understand exactly what went wrong here for one of America's most distinguished directors. The pace of Stevens' films had been slowing down throughout the course of his career, but here, presumably to heighten the audience's sense of awe, he's made it unendurably static. In part, this may be due to his decision to give virtually every performer in the huge star-laden cast their own set piece. While much of the cast is excellent, a number are laughably bad, including Pat Boone as a man at the tomb and David Hedison as Philip. Others are seriously miscast, such as Ed Wynn and Sal Mineo, and a number, like Robert Blake, Jamie Farr, and Telly Savalas, are unfortunate victims of their own iconography. The famed performance of John Wayne as a centurion competes with his work as Genghis Khan in The Conqueror (1956) as the worst in his later career.