O. Henry’s Full House

“The Cop And The Anthem”, a flabbergasting masterpiece on a fellow (Charles Laughton) who but for the grace of God can’t get himself arrested to save his life.

My Cousin Rachel

This very purposively enigmatic film seems to have been made for no other purpose than a simple juxtaposition of disparate elements, so as to extract (possibly) the most refined analysis imaginable, short of “a sewing machine and an umbrella” side-by-side, out-Jamesing Henry James. This would be Nunnally Johnson’s joke, laid out by Koster with the utmost attention to surface detail, and acted with just the right soupçon of zest.

The Robe

The screenplay notably rejects the senatorial animadversions of Tacitus for a clearer view. Tiberius is sagacious, putting off soothsayers and witch doctors. Caligula is very high-strung, you can see the political interpretations fairly welling up all around him. They are recognizably human heads of state, for all that.

The tribune (Richard Burton) is a sensible Roman who buys a slave (Victor Mature) because the man has spirit, because the market is degrading, and because Caligula has him in mind as a gift for the tribune’s childhood friend (Jean Simmons). A sensible Roman.

There is a remarkable scene of volatility exhibiting Percy Helton as a dunning wine merchant who is flung into the baths, which balances in its unexpectedly keyed-up tone the furious swordfight between the tribune and a former comrade-in-arms, the realism and vigor of which in turn evidently served as one of the sources for Hitchcock of the farmhouse fight in Torn Curtain.

Pontius Pilate (Richard Boone) is also bereft of angular satire, a soberminded and harried provincial officer.

It’s the tribune’s first crucifixion, he is bidden to reflect upon this, and very wisely takes a drink first. Afterward, the soldiers are dicing (“a crap game between every bunk,” as Bob Hope would say) with a cup, the careless tribune (“I always win,” he says nonchalantly) accepts the homespun scarlet robe as a last wager.

The messiah’s coming is sung by Miriam (Betta St. John) upon a harp, to a Hebraic melody. The robe scalds the very flesh of the tribune, or anyway sears his conscience, and he is at length converted.

Koster’s direction can be very profitably studied in the schools. According to Katz, “his reputation as a craftsman led to his assignment as director of the first film in CinemaScope, The Robe,” and the limitations of budget do not deter him from a constant insinuating attention to the structural details of every shot. Where, the playmate of his childhood wants to know, is the tribune now? She is led to the catacombs where the followers of Jesus gather. Koster films her on the portico of a palatial building, which can just be seen behind her amid the red marble columns that dominate the shot, conferring with an associate of the tribune, who leads her down the steps and away.

A Man Called Peter

The compositions are so perfect that, just once, the dolly reveals how arduous they are by trundling rapidly between them, after the sermon in Atlanta. Few directors there are who would not stare agape at the subtlety and power of this. The brilliant surrealism of Stars and Stripes Forever is adapted to another purpose. The biographical rendering is a precursor of Ken Russell.

Peter Marshall, Chaplain of the United States Senate, rises to that position of undoubted eminence from his divine calling in Scotland, work as a laborer in America, the Columbia Theological Seminary, a small congregation in Georgia, then a large one, and the New York Avenue Church in Washington, D.C. (the Church of the Presidents). In memorable sermons he expounds on faith, the church, death, the prophetic mission and suchlike matters. Early on, his future wife joins him to speak on Mary with similar eloquence, while still a student at Agnes Scott College.

A Midwestern senator changes his vote on a bill, inspired by the forthrightness of Marshall’s preaching at New York Avenue. The bill is designed merely to create “a crop of millionaires” at the expense of small farmers. Its defeat is announced on the radio news following a report of lessening tensions with the Japanese. Marshall preaches, inspired, an impromptu sermon at Annapolis, where the chapel must have presented a lighting problem of Kubrickian proportions. During the war, he runs a canteen in the church basement for servicemen. His wife contracts tuberculosis. Rest and prayer on Cape Cod avail her nothing, only submission to the divine will restores her to health. Immediately upon their return to Washington, he is stricken by heart troubles. Asking for divine guidance on the dais of the Senate finally kills him. He had been a lover of the sea all his life, though his wife got seasick. After his death, she and their young son and their dog row out from shore, she addresses her late husband with the title of an Alan J. Pakula film, “See you in the morning.”

Koster’s awe-inspiring precision anchors the film at every moment while admitting a round view of the events. Long takes are a specialty, the camera not moving any more than it would for William Wyler. The foibles and characteristics of the people represented are shown in each continuous scene with the idiosyncrasy of the apostles. “Man is but a vapor,” says James, and Marshall begins a sermon by asking, “what did he mean by that?” His secretary conveys a message from the senator, commenting, “what a strange way of putting it.” Marshall cheerily replies, “Yes, strange and mysterious, like the ways of the Lord.”

Preminger’s The Cardinal no doubt remembers this film, which as an American satire is almost without equal in its profundity and wit, while as the work of a Berlin filmmaker in exile it presents a clear view of what Germany lost.

The “‘argument of military necessity’ (generalissimo e)”, as E.E. Cummings puts it, must be borne, it’s the peacetime wrangling that kills the minister. His invocations are seen as a sequence of snippets, followed by dinner at home. “You’ll have to ask the blessing,” says Dr. Marshall to his wife, “the Lord knows I’m not grateful for turkey hash, and I can’t fool him.”

The film is spoofed in a 1962 episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour called “Bonfire”.

The Story of Ruth

The Moabitish splendors pass into the genre-painting of Bethlehem across the widescreen panoply treated as fresco panels with distinct reference to De Mille’s geometric handling of The Ten Commandments in a centrally Egyptian style, for comparison, and later registered by Mankiewicz in Cleopatra.

The dramatic bounds are those of sacrifice and consummation, Ruth is a priestess in the temple where children of her sex are ritually given to the knife and immolation. Naomi’s prayer brings a divine messenger, followed by rain in the cistern reflecting the faces of Ruth and Boaz.

The exceptional vigor and clarity of the performances is quite a deliberate study by Koster for peculiar effects of character, achieved by contrast and relief so therefore pictorial, in a way.

The Singing Nun

Koster underplays this consistently to his heroine, who becomes in her professional capacity a luminous apparition of convent wisdom and a very effective symbol of the artist himself, hence the transmogrification of the final scene in an African village, the sudden displacement has its surrealistic uses, may be seen as an honor to Sœur Sourire out of Eliot’s The Cocktail Party, but is directly understood at once in itself.

Variety and Bosley Crowther were disappointed.