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I would be grateful for any assistance in identifying, i.e., making sure I haven't overlooked, any of the major religious-based films of the silent era. While I will be focusing on those films that are extant and, to a lesser extent, available on home video, I want to discuss the ones that haven't survived such as THE SHEPHERD KING (1923) and THE WANDERER (1925). I'm deliberately omitting films such as INTOLERANCE and SODOM AND GOMMORAH.

Here's what I have so far:

FROM THE MANGER TO THE CROSS (1913)
JOAN THE WOMAN (1917) - not Biblical but religious
THE TEN COMMANDMENTS (1923)
MOON OF ISRAEL (1924)
BEN-HUR (1925)
THE KING OF KINGS (1927)
NOAH'S ARK (1928)

Am I missing any major extant titles? Thanks.

I don't think The Sign of the Cross (1914) still exists.

Life of Moses (1909).

Bob

The Queen of Sheba (1921)

silentfilm wrote:

I don't think The Sign of the Cross (1914) still exists.

The Sign of the Cross (1914) exists. It was on the ThoughtEquity site for a while,
probably from the NL Eye Institute.

La vie et la passion de Jesus Christ (Life and Passion of Jesus Christ) (1903)

http://archive.org/details/LaVieEtLaPas ... Christ1903

A 43 minute epic in living Pathechrome!

bobfells wrote:I would be grateful for any assistance in identifying, i.e., making sure I haven't overlooked, any of the major religious-based films of the silent era. While I will be focusing on those films that are extant and, to a lesser extent, available on home video, I want to discuss the ones that haven't survived such as THE SHEPHERD KING (1923) and THE WANDERER (1925). I'm deliberately omitting films such as INTOLERANCE and SODOM AND GOMMORAH.

Here's what I have so far:

FROM THE MANGER TO THE CROSS (1913)
JOAN THE WOMAN (1917) - not Biblical but religious
THE TEN COMMANDMENTS (1923)
MOON OF ISRAEL (1924)
BEN-HUR (1925)
THE KING OF KINGS (1927)
NOAH'S ARK (1928)

Am I missing any major extant titles? Thanks.

Bob,

Unless I'm mistaken, THE WANDERER is not a lost film I don't believe? In-fact, I think it was recently restored and screened at a Festival or two. I know I have some posters and lobby's in here someplace. Allot seems to be missing from the 1924 QUA VADIS with Emil Jannings.

I've got a file of some Jesus Flick from roughly 1918 on my portable drive someplace. Can't recall the title. It's a very good print too. Much better than the version that Grapevine used to have. What is the name?

There is also the other Joan of Arc film from 1928.

The Wanderer does exist as a cut-down 16mm print at UCLA (about 60 minutes of the original 90-ish, if run at 24fps). I don't know if it survives complete elsewhere.

-HA

Sign of the Cross (1914) is on the Thought Equity site.

Does "Judith of Bethulia" (1914) count?

You could argue for Faust and the myriad versions of Joan of Arc as religious epics.

R Michael Pyle wrote:Does "Judith of Bethulia" (1914) count?

Thanks Michael. I will include JUDITH. BTW, somebody recently posted this film in four parts on Youtube. There's no music but the print looks pretty good.

According to the commentary on Weiss-O-Rama, there was an Italian epic called LA BIBLIA- an effort to film the entire bible- which the Weiss Brothers bought and chopped up into shorts. Apparently they kept distributing them to the church market well into the sound era. Richard Roberts would have the details on that one.

You might fit CABIRIA in there someplace- it isn't biblical, but there are sacrifices to Moloch

I would add Melies' Tentation du St. Anthony from 1898 because of its age, and Alice Guy's La Vie du Christ from 1906, which at 33 minutes is very long for 1906.

Bob

FrankFay wrote:According to the commentary on Weiss-O-Rama, there was an Italian epic called LA BIBLIA- an effort to film the entire bible- which the Weiss Brothers bought and chopped up into shorts. Apparently they kept distributing them to the church market well into the sound era. Richard Roberts would have the details on that one.

LA BIBBLIA was cut from 50 reels to standard feature length by the Weiss Brothers and released as AFTER SIX DAYS, and the sound reissue of that, all that survives, is on VCI's SILENT DISCOVERIES DVD.

The Weiss's also released a German Film called THE FALL OF JERUSALEM in the mid-20's as well.


RICHARD M ROBERTS

FrankFay wrote: You might fit CABIRIA in there someplace- it isn't biblical, but there are sacrifices to Moloch

There's an obvious distinction to be made between biblical & religious...the inspiration for Noah's Ark may be biblical, but it exhibits little in the way of genuine religious sentiment.

entredeuxguerres wrote:There's an obvious distinction to be made between biblical & religious...the inspiration for Noah's Ark may be biblical, but it exhibits little in the way of genuine religious sentiment.

And the flip side of that is that there may be religious films that aren't biblical, especially from countries like India or Japan. There are non-Christian religious elements in some of the native American films, like The Vanishing American, Redskin, and The Silent Enemy; though in none is the topic so over-arching that I'd call them "religious epics." Fritz Lang's Destiny deals with the afterlife and an arguably Judeo-Christian personified Death who escorts souls into the afterlife, but again, I don't know if "religious" would be an appropriate description. It's certainly not biblical.

I tired to watch Judith of Bethulia last year but
it wasn't until I used the Wikipedia entry on the book
of Judith

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Judith" target="_blank

that I got a better gist of it. It is on YouTube in whole:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9mIR0y1WQM" target="_blank

I think the soundtrack is one where it works in parts
and doesn't always in others. The volume control works
wonders.

I would be interested in helping with an English translation
of The Sign of the Cross. It's pretty easy to get DVD's from
the NL institute. Anyone can contact me if they have an
interest in a collaboration on this.

Richard M Roberts wrote:

FrankFay wrote:According to the commentary on Weiss-O-Rama, there was an Italian epic called LA BIBLIA- an effort to film the entire bible- which the Weiss Brothers bought and chopped up into shorts. Apparently they kept distributing them to the church market well into the sound era. Richard Roberts would have the details on that one.

LA BIBBLIA was cut from 50 reels to standard feature length by the Weiss Brothers and released as AFTER SIX DAYS, and the sound reissue of that, all that survives, is on VCI's SILENT DISCOVERIES DVD.

The Weiss's also released a German Film called THE FALL OF JERUSALEM in the mid-20's as well.


RICHARD M ROBERTS

Thanks for that clarification.

If you haven't already, you might want to read (or selectively skim) Terry Lindvall's The Silents of God: Selected Issues and Documents in Silent Ameican Film and Religion 1908-1925 (Scarecrow Press, 2001), which discusses and reprints various reactions to movies by Protestant Christian groups and individuals.

Another title to consider, though hardly an epic, is THE BLASPHEMER (1921), which has an approach similar to the modern section of the 1923 version of THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. Victor Seastrom's THE PHANTOM CARRIAGE might be another appropriate title. There are Some of the "Maciste" films might qualify for your category. And of course Carl Theodore Dreyer's THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC (1928).

HYPOCRITES (1915) directed by Lois Weber.

CHRISTUS (1914) directed by Giuseppe de Liguoro. Early Italian epic. 82 minutes. Grapevine has this listed.

Danny

The 1912 Italian "Quo Vadis?" directed by Enrico Guazzoni for Cines, S.A. (I don't know about availability on home video, but YouTube has clips.)
Also, the 1907 Kalem "Ben-Hur" directed by Sidney Olcott. (Available from Grapevine.) A single reel film, but important for at least one reason besides being the first version of the book -- Kalem was successfully sued for copyright violation for not obtaining the rights to the novel before making the film. It was common -- even accepted -- practice for filmmakers to ignore literary copyrights prior to this particular production, but not so much afterwards.

How about Nazimova's version of Salome (1923)? It's preserved at Eastman House and I think has been released on DVD, although I'm guessing it doesn't really qualify as an epic.

Since we've drifted a bit, how about films with personifications of the Devil?

Leaves from Satan's Book
The Sorrows of Satan
Maciste in Hall
and (of course) George Arliss in The Devil.

s.w.a.c. wrote:How about Nazimova's version of Salome (1923)? It's preserved at Eastman House and I think has been released on DVD, although I'm guessing it doesn't really qualify as an epic.

I'm not sure what it qualifies as, other than "harebrained." It goes without saying, I love it to death.

Frederica wrote:

s.w.a.c. wrote:How about Nazimova's version of Salome (1923)? It's preserved at Eastman House and I think has been released on DVD, although I'm guessing it doesn't really qualify as an epic.

I'm not sure what it qualifies as, other than "harebrained." It goes without saying, I love it to death.

I see there was a DVD combining it with Lot In Sodom, which also goes into the "Biblical, yes; epic, no" category.

THAIS (1917) - starring Mary Garden; produced by Sam Goldwyn. I think it was 'Gagman' who recommended a nice score for this.

A big THANK YOU to everyone here for their suggestions. I was not aware of some films such as CHRISTUS, and I'll be checking out some other titles such as Nazimova's SALOME to determine if they fit in at all with the theme of the book - although this SALOME owes more to Oscar Wilde than to Holy Scripture.

Since I like to start with a definitive title and even a cover design, let me share with you what I've come up with so far:


The cover photo shows the Crucifixion being filmed for BEN-HUR (1925)

There's the eight-hour The Photo-Drama of Creation (1914). I don't know anything about it, but I'm a sucker for ridiculously long films.