Esther et le Roi

Like other Italian works of this era, underappreciated and cynically criticized for what it is not, this is a work of art, beautifully woven together in music, mood, and cinematography leaving the viewer in the end fulfilled in the desire to escape from the modern world into a place inaccessible, and, yes, surrealistic.

The music, written by the Italian master Francesco Lavagnino, one of the great movie music composers of the 20th century, commands the mood of each scene and spans the range of moods in the work, from the march of soldiers to the Queen in the flower garden to her love scene with the King to the mystic mood in the ruins where Simon hides. It is a fine piece of composition.

The words in the script are, in some scenes, not meant to be ordinary conversation, but rather noble thoughts, royal council, and human aspirations, and thus are written and delivered as such. When mental burdens weigh heavily on the King, he is told by his friend Mordecai that "... by lifting the burdens of others one can lift one's own burden ... " Such thoughts are actually quite profound, that in some cases depressed moods arise from self-centered thinking and self-victimization, and that by helping others in a selfless way one can relieve one's own burdens. In the garden, Mordecai councils Esther that " .. the King is attracted to her sense of justice and loyalty, the same qualities that bind her still to Simon, her previous love, and that may turn the King against her in jealousy..."

The cinematography in the scene of the death of Simon, where the camera rises above Simon and the queen to the Star of David, which then appears on the wall of the next scene, is very well done. In another scene, the King is asked whom he had chosen to be his queen, and as he replies "A girl named Esther", the camera pans past the concerned face of Haman to reveal the quite different satisfied expression of Mordecai.

There is much to appreciate in the music, words, and visual presentation of this work. Of course this is not meant to be a documentary, a faithful retelling of an ancient story. Criticism should be directed at how it fails in its own intent as a melancholic, romantic, and introspective fantasy, rather than based on the viewer's expectations. If my understanding of its intent is near the mark, then my conclusion is that this work, like the Raoul Walsh epic The Big Trail made 30 years earlier, succeeds very well.

There isn't a whole lot to distinguish this middling biblical epic from the sea of others that came out in the mid-50's and early 60's, but it offers a certain degree of entertainment. Egan (decidedly miscast) plays the King of Persia (with Brillcremed hair and a standard American accent) who returns from a long battle to find that his wife has been enjoying the services of one or more of his men. He excuses himself from her and sets out to find a new virgin bride, choosing from all the maidens in his kingdom. Virginal Jewess Collins (yes...that's right) is the title character. She is snatched away mere moments before becoming wed to Battaglia and is taken to the palace to be groomed for the selection process. Once there, she is protected by her uncle O'Dea (who entreats her to hide her Jewish heritage) and is targeted by Fantoni who is Egan's right-hand man. Fantoni has another lady in mind for the throne so he can use her to his own ends of taking over the kingdom. Eventually, Collins realizes that she and only she can spare her people from destruction and she decides to leave behind her dreams of a life with Battaglia and pursue Egan. Egan, still in very good shape physically, makes a handsome king and gives an okay performance. He is just patently contemporary in his look and delivery. Collins is very attractive throughout (complete with heavy bouffant 60's hair!) and does an adequate job as well, but is always more interesting as a villainess than as a docile young maiden. O'Dea lends able support as her wise and stalwart uncle. It would be difficult to summon up a more virile, hirsute, hunk of man than Battaglia as Collin's abandoned lover. Seeing him, one can understand the torment she had at having to turn her back on her past and move on. The location work, fancy sets, pageantry and gauzy costumes keep this from being too dull, but there is an awful lot of chatter and hand-wringing in between the action sequences. Stay awake for the scene in which Egan gifts Collins with a tiger cub and then immediately steps over to a lyre and plunks out what sounds like the opening strains of "Born Free"! As expected, considerable liberties have been taken with the original story, yet it doesn't result in that much more spectacular a film.

I saw this film shortly after seeing "Spartacus", which probably meant that it was not seen to its best advantage. Although both films date from the same year, and although both fall within the same tradition of the historic/Biblical epic, they are very different in terms of quality. Whereas "Spartacus" is perhaps the greatest epic ever made, "Esther and the King" is very much from the bargain-basement end of the market.

Like a number of other bargain-basement epics ("Samson and Delilah", "Salome" and "Solomon and Sheba" all come to mind), "Esther" is an odd mixture of godliness and sexiness. Films of this nature generally preached a vaguely Christian message (in this case that religious toleration is preferable to sectarian genocide) but in order to get that message across the producers seemed to find it necessary to show as much female flesh as the censors of the day would permit, with nubile slave-girls and scantily-dressed dancers much in evidence. The Bible tells us that Queen Vashti incurred the displeasure of her husband King Ahasuerus because she refused his command to appear in the palace "to shew the people and the princes her beauty". In this film, however, Vashti is guilty of quite the opposite offence, namely that of showing the people and the princes more of her beauty than she ought to by doing a striptease down to her panties in the royal hall.

There is, moreover, a good deal of male flesh on view as well as female. The main qualification for the male lead in this type of epic was a pair of muscular legs that would look good in a short kilt or tunic. (Acting ability was very much a secondary consideration). This convention is adhered to here; although the ancient Persians, unlike the Greeks, Romans or Egyptians, preferred to wear trousers, Richard Egan as Ahasuerus still dresses Roman-style, as do Sergio Fantoni as the main villain Haman and Richard Battaglia as the secondary hero Simon. (Simon is an invented character not found in the Biblical account, Esther's sweetheart before she is chosen as the King's second wife).

The one person who is exempt from the need to strip down to the bare essentials is, surprisingly enough, Joan Collins, strikingly attractive in this film but covered up throughout. I say "surprisingly" because since "The Bitch" and "Dynasty" the popular perception is that she was a one-trick pony, an actress who specialised in playing sultry villainesses and little else. There was, however, more to her than that. Although she did play a villainess in her earlier epic "Land of the Pharaohs", she was a versatile actress during her time as a Hollywood star and was quite as much at home playing virtuous heroines. (In "Sea Wife" she even played a nun). Here she plays Esther as an innocent girl-next-door suddenly, and unexpectedly, raised to royal status, and is probably the best actor on display.

As with many epics, liberties are taken with history. Much of the plot turns upon a coming war between the Persians and the Greeks under "that young Macedonian upstart Alexander". The Biblical Ahasuerus is normally identified by historians with the Persian King Xerxes I, who reigned from 485 to 465 BC, well before the time of Alexander (356-323 BC). When war comes in the film, the Persians defeat the Greeks, whereas Alexander was in fact victorious in his war against Persia. In order to strengthen the religious tone of the film, a contrast is made between the monotheistic Jews and supposedly polytheistic Persians; in reality the state religion of Persia at this time was Zoroastrianism, a religion which only recognised one god, Ahura Mazda.

The film's main weakness, however, is not its departures from both the Biblical version of the story or from historical fact, something that could be forgiven if the resulting film was artistically satisfying. The main problem is that I found it impossible to believe in either the characters or the story. With the exception of Denis O'Dea as Esther's wise old uncle Mordecai, all the male stars are either wooden or hammy, and with the exception of Collins herself the female ones are just twentieth-century glamour girls transported back in time, with no real function other than to look decorative. The dialogue often sounds stilted, sometimes deliberately so, and this has the effect of distancing the film even further from reality. It may be a fantasy of the ancient world rather than an attempt to recreate that world accurately, but even a fantasy needs to be populated by characters who bear some resemblance to flesh-and-blood human beings. Apart from Collins and O'Dea, that resemblance is all too often lacking. 5/10

They say it's more Mario Bava's work than Raoul Walsh's whose métier was not really the biblical epic .The cinematography ,often dark,recalls some of the Italian director's horror movies,particularly Haman's henchman's murders.And I think that Joan Collins was better at playing a Villainess as she did in Hawks' "land of the pharaohs" .

The part of Simon-played by Ric(k) Battaglia ,a specialist of the cheap Italian sword and sandal ,who played such figures as Orlando(Roland) or Vercingetorix- was made from start to finish by the screenwriters ,to create a dilemma for the heroine.The Bible,anyway,is given a rough ride :nothing is told ,for example ,about the fact that Mordecai -not Esther's uncle ,but actually her cousin,which does not make a big difference anyway- did not want to make a deep bow to Haman.

Richard Egan ,on the other hand, is a good king ,he has style ,and he is as convincing a monarch as he is the good doctor,Pollyanna's friend ,the same year.

Much like another feminist and contemporaneous Biblical epic i.e Henry Koster's THE STORY OF RUTH (1960), this turns out to be more enjoyable and even compelling than one expects it to be. Actually, although I was aware of Mario Bava's engagement as a cinematographer here, it had not occurred to me that he was also a co-director (which prompted this unforeseen revisit from yours truly – a few weeks after Good Friday which would have been the ideal time for it). As was often the case with such U.S./Italian co-productions, a Hollywood veteran 'supervised' the production actually helmed by an Italian craftsman; in Bava's case, he had already collaborated with Jacques Tourneur on THE GIANT OF MARATHON (1959) and would do so again with Henry Levin on THE WONDERS OF ALADDIN (1961; see my review above). However, when it comes to ESTHER AND THE KING, it seems that Raoul Walsh's involvement was much more hands on since, atypically for him at the twilight of his impressive career, he was also the producer and co-screenwriter of the film! Joan Collins and Richard Egan ably portray the titular roles of the Hebrew maiden and the Persian King and the cast list is peppered with recognizable faces that add appeal to the alternately solemn and campy proceedings: Denis O'Dea (in his last screen appearance as Collins' uncle and Egan's trusted counselor), Rik Battaglia (as Collins' embittered fiancé and Egan's former friend), Sergio Fantoni (clearly enjoying himself a great deal as the film's leering villain), Daniela Rocca (as Egan's nymphomaniac wife – the dance sequence ending with her topless has to be seen to be believed), Rosalba Neri (as Fantoni's ambitious but ill-fated mistress), Gabriele Tinti (as Battaglia's pal) and Folco Lulli (regrettably wasted in a throwaway cameo towards the end of the film). While the few scattered fight sequences are not particularly vivid or exciting, another element I enjoyed was the equally rousing and lovely music score that is here credited to Angelo Francesco Lavagnino (a peplum veteran) and Roberto Nicolosi (a Bava regular).