El pescador de Galilea

The Big Fisherman was certainly not the biggest - or the best - of the fifties/sixties cycle of 70mm epics. Arriving between Ben-Hur (1959) and Spartacus (1960), it is not surprising that this rather small-scale epic became lost in the shuffle. It has no battles, no huge crowd scenes - in fact the crowds can be numbered in dozens rather than thousands - and an archaic script that harks back to Bible epics that were made ten years earlier.

That said, Lee Garmes' cinematography is splendid and Albert Hay Mallotte's score is superb; plus Howard Keel, Herbert Lom, John Saxon and Martha Hyer deliver exemplary performances, in spite of the leaden script.

Contrary to previous comments, The Big Fisherman was NOT shot in MGM Camera 65 - only Raintree County and Ben-Hur were. After the process changed its name to Ultra Panavision, it was used on Mutiny on the Bounty, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, Khartoum and The Fall of the Roman Empire. The Big Fisherman used Super Panavision - a non anamorphic 70mm widescreen process.

Inferior the film may be to its contemporaries, it still deserves a DVD release - preferably a Special Edition version, as it is most certainly a worthy part of the canon of 70mm epics.

For further information, go to www.widescreenmovies.org and click on 'Highlights of Previous Issues' then 'The Epic that Disappeared: The Big Fisherman'.

Howard Keel says in his posthumously published memoirs that he grabbed the part of Simon Peter in The Big Fisherman to prove his versatility as an actor. Musicals were pretty much done by that time and he was free of his MGM contract.

He got the role after John Wayne turned the part down. That one was an eye opener I have to say. My conception of St. Peter has always been that of a big hale and hearty man used to working in the outdoors. We see an older Peter in Quo Vadis with Finlay Currie and now we have a younger one in Keel.

Still I can't believe that Frank Borzage wanted John Wayne. After coming off that disaster in The Barbarian and the Geisha, the Duke wisely turned this one down.

Keel does give a good performance as Peter. Other than Keel the player best remembered for this film is Ray Stricklyn as the evil young Arab prince.

It's good to remember that this is a fictional story about a biblical figure though some scenes of events described in the Bible are in the film. Nevertheless there are some plot flaws. Peter goes among the Arabs here and this was six centuries before Mohammed came on the scene. If you were to follow the logic of the film, the Arab people would have been converted to Christianity. Now maybe it would have saved us all a lot of bloodshed over the centuries had they, still even in a work of fiction that's a bit much to swallow.

Keel liked making the film and had high hopes for it. Unfortunately it ran up against Ben-Hur another filmed biblically based novel this time with the protagonist being a fictional character. Additionally The Big Fisherman got lost somewhere in the corporate doings of Buena Vista Films and the Walt Disney studio. Back in the Fifties, Buena Vista did distribute films not necessarily with the Walt Disney brand on them. It's been seen on television a few times, I saw it again about 12 years ago. It should be seen in theaters though. Like Ben-Hur something is lost even with a letter box version.

But can you imagine John Wayne as St. Peter? Turn that one over in your minds.

Just watched this long epic movie on YouTube. It stars Howard Keel in the title role as Simon who becomes Peter when converted to Jesus' teachings. Jesus is heard and not seen though we do see his hands whenever possible. There's also Susan Kohner as Princess Fara, John Saxon as her lover Prince Voldi, Herbert Lom as the ruler Herod Antipas, and Martha Hyer as his bitchy lover/eventual wife Herodias. Oh, and in once again citing a player from my favorite movie-It's a Wonderful Life-in another film, Beulah Bondi as Hannah, Simon's mother-in-law. They're all pretty good especially Keel with his familiar baritone voice and Lom with his theatrical readings. And the music score by Albert Hay Malotte was really stirring which complements Frank Borzage's direction to a T. Since the running time is listed as 180 min. on this site, it's possible that the version I saw on YT might have been abridged since that one ran 2 hrs., 20 min. No matter since I was moved just the same. Really, all I'll say is if you stumble into this either there or elsewhere, I highly recommend The Big Fisherman.

I saw this one during its initial release at a theater in Palm Springs, California (now used only for stage shows and live presentations...one has to go a few miles out of the downtown area to find a multiplex, at least during my last visit there a year or so ago.) The 70mm cinematography (using the same units, borrowed presumably from M-G-M, that had been shipped to Rome to lens "Ben-Hur" - in "M-G-M Camera 65" - a "Window of the World" as the studio had touted it for the first production in that process, 1957's "Raintree County" starring Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift) is stunning, making great use of the Salton Sea area, a few miles from Palm Springs itself. I don't remember this film all that well, but I do recall that Herbert Lom and Martha Hyer, as Herod Antipas and his evil consort, Herodias, achieved chillingly corrupt portrayals, under the steady hand of old Hollywood veteran, Frank Borzage.

One wonders who now holds the rights to this film, for it would certainly be a title that might do well given a good transfer to DVD.

Despite what is written in "Did you know?" section, this movie is not connected to "The Robe" or "Demetrius and the Gladiators". It just has one character (the leading role, "the big fisherman", i.e. Saint Peter, the Apostle) in common, nothing else. At most, it could be considered a prequel of "The Robe", since the action precedes the events told in "The Robe". More, "the Big Fisherman" is a different kind of movie than "The Robe" and "Demetrius..."; it is built differently, it is shot differently, and so on. Yet, if you have enjoyed "The Robe" and "Demetrius...", you should enjoy this one, too. It has not the grandeur of the other two, but it is more alert.