Spada e la croce, La (1958)

Director:

Carlo Ludovico Bragaglia

Writers:

Ottavio Poggi (story)
Sandro Continenza (screenplay)

Release Date:

22 December 1958 (Italy)

Genre:

Drama

Plot Keywords:

Mask | Pontius Pilate | Biblical | Jerusalem | Jesus Christ

Cast

Yvonne De Carlo	...	Maria Maddalena
Jorge Mistral	...	Caio Marcello
Rossana Podestà	...	Marta
Massimo Serato	...	Anan
Andrea Aureli	...	Barabba
Terence Hill	...	Lazzaro (as Mario Girotti)
Nando Tamberlani	...	Caifa
Philippe Hersent	...	Ponzio Pilato
Rosanna Rory	...	Claudia
Nadia Brivio
Bob Morgan	...	Giuda (as Roberto Morgani)
Aldo Pini
Giulio Battiferri	...	Centurione Romano
Franco Fantasia	...	Ezra
Roberto Cesana

Also Known As:

Mary Magdalene
The Sword and the Cross

Runtime:

West Germany:105 min

Country:

Italy

Language:

Italian

Color:

Color (Ferraniacolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Finland:K-12 | Spain:T

Filming Locations:

Incir De Paolis Studios, Rome, Lazio, Italy

Company:

Liber Film

Uninvolving peplum with an Yvonne De Carlo who has had better (looking) days.

Yet another one of the dime-a-dozen religious "epics" the Italians churned out during the fifties and sixties, trying to cash on Hollywood's then very fashionable entries in the genre. As is the case with many of them, this one features an American star as the lead, in this case Yvonne De Carlo, who here plays the Biblical Mary Magdalene, or should I say the Tradition Mary Magdalene, as she is portrayed as a prostitute and identified with Mary of Bethania, none of which has any Gospel basis.

This seems to have been influenced by Mervyn LeRoy's "Quo Vadis", centering the plot around the love story between a Roman (the wooden Jorge Mistral - Luis Buñuel's "Abismos de pasión") and a Christian girl (De Carlo, in a pretty bad and bored performance), only in this case she's not a Christian in the beginning, but converts after a (not too sexy) dance in front of an old Christian, and an apparition of Jesus outside her window. After this, she becomes fascinated with Jesus (apparently with the man's charisma only, not his teachings) and vows she'll never be touched by a man again. The rest of it is standard Biblical movie stuff, culminating in the Crucifixion, and offering as a climactic moment a swordfight between Mistral and Barabbas (portrayed here as more of a violent revolutionary than a thief) which is quite poor, being evident that the actors are aiming at each other's swords and not bodies.

Cinematographer Raffaele Masciocchi proves himself clueless at lighting movie stars: De Carlo was 36 when she did this movie, and she looks 46. The previous year she had been in "Band of Angels" with Clark Gable, in which she looked a lot younger and prettier. Part of the fault might be the makeup artist's, since she appears pale and sports a set of hideous Joan Crawford lips. Fans of her who want to check this movie out expecting sparkling beauty will be sorely disappointed. On the other hand, a certain Mario Girotti looks amazingly youthful here, almost childlike, and is hard to recognize in him the man who will become famous under the name of Terence Hill.

Not good enough to be enjoyed as cinema, and not bad enough to be enjoyed for laughs, this is just plain uninteresting and instantly forgettable. What movie was I talking about, by the way? 3/10.