Customer Reviews

Joseph and His Brethren

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

The biblical accounts are not represented with a great deal of accuracy.

Much creative license is used in the portrayals.

But the biggest drawback is poor sound quality.

This is horrible!!!!!! I can not believe that other people gave this a good rating. I wish I have never bought this product. In the past, I have bought a number of classical bible movies, and they were GREAT!! But this, I can't even return this hunk of junk! Do not under any circumstance buy this collection. To tell you the truth, it doesn't deserve any stars at all. The films is all blurry, the back ground music is warped. The plot of the stories are truly B-rated. From now, I will be alot more cautious when purchasing my bible collection movies.

I had been hearing lots (and I mean, LOTS) of negative things about this movie, which, strangely, piqued my curiosity in it all the more (albeit in a disgusting way. Disgusted curiosity, in other words). I finally got to see it sometime ago - for free, thank heavens - and wow, it was even worse than I thought. It surpassed my low expectations. I would've thought it was a spoof or something, but from what I've heard, the film makers of this movie were *serious* in the making of this.

Wow, were they for real?

I'd never imagined a film as... as WACKO as this one could possibly exist on the face of the earth. For one thing, they got a lot of the Bible facts wrong, such as Jacob travelling w/ his sons to Egypt to rescue Simeon, and the baker (the guy in the prison who was executed) as Asenath's FATHER (erm, the Word clearly states that her father was the high priest of On, dearie, NOT the baker!).

Additionally, as Alfred D Byrd's review so eloquently stated, the characters and story were just WEIRD. The way they acted, the way the plot was executed - it was just weirdness to the max. Eh, a lot of examples of the craziness that was this movie was already mentioned, so let me see if I can add a few more... oh! Before the brothers sell Joseph into slavery, they get into this huge fight (the whole lot vs Joseph and Reuben) with the most abnormal-looking movements. Goodness, I don't even know how to mentally "choreograph" it...

And the costuming was so weird. The nemes headdresses actually reminded me of elephant ears. Real Egyptian nemeses were not that... elephant-like.

The only nice thing about this movie is the scene in which Joseph and Asenath get together, and Joseph says something really beautiful and poetic (gasp!) about flowers in the desert growing together... aww... The one bright spot in this crazy, dismal movie.

Pity, too, that such a lovely and Victorian title has to be lent to such an icky film.

Fun to watch if you have nothing better to do, or just want to satisfy a gross curiosity; even better to watch it w/ someone who's got a great sense of humour, as he/she can crack at the absurdities in this movie. But be careful not to get sucked too much into this movie... next thing you know, you'll (literally) be slitting someone's wrist to save them from a fainting spell (oh horror of horrors!!!).

And yes, to what Mr Byrd said... run from this film and to much, much, muuuch better portrayals of Joseph, like Hallmark's 'In The Beginning' or, if you like animation, 'Joseph King of Dreams.' Now those are beautiful, respectable films, worlds above this laughable piece of.... nonsense.

But hey, an interesting experience. For as a big fan of the Joseph story, I somehow feel I ought to expose myself to BOTH the good and bad retellings of Joseph. It can actually be quite... fun ((gasp))

First, if you want a DVD about Joseph, buy the DVD "Jacob and Joseph." It is well-worth it. Don't waste your money on this DVD.

This DVD "Joseph and his Brethren" is not faithful to scripture. The worst example is that it portrays Joseph as an angry, rebellious young man, not the upright, industrious man in scripture.

There are other instances which run even more in direct contradiction to scripture. I bought this DVD several months ago, and watched it only once. I forget exactly what these were, but if you watch the video, and you know Genesis, you will see the contradictions. I don't plan to watch this again, so I will not bother to find what the problems were exactly. But take my word for it, you will be disappointed if you buy this.

The acting is mediocre given today's standards but still engaging. I sat with the Bible in my hands as I watched the movie and found the film depicted an impressively accurate account of the story of Joseph from Genesis.

Fast service. Poor Quality DVD but Considering the age of the movies it was well worth the low price.

this movie is ok but not great. it makes you feel sorry for porthiar's wife. and she was the devil. so this movie is a so-so. nothing to write home about. and i don't feel sorry for her.

The movie was a bit dated but the message was very strong. I would purchase it again if needed.

The quality of the four movies in this collection vary greatly in quality. I do applaud the attempt to save some of the cinema for future generations and I found these versions of three bibilical stories and one pseudo-biography interesting variations on their stories. You also get the chance to see some young fairly famous stars before they were very famous at all.

The movies included are:

"David and Goliath" starring Orson Welles and Ivo Payer

"Joseph and His Brethren" starring Goeffrey Horne and Robert Morley

"Martin Luther" starring Niall MacGinnis and John Ruddock

"Esther and the King" starring Joan Collins and Richard Egan.

Sometimes something that you expected to be bad turns out to be worse than you imagined. A case in point is the movie Joseph and His Brethren, which a theologian friend of mine told me was "the worst Biblical movie that I've seen." His comment did not prepare me for what I saw.

Let me put the film into its proper perspective: Joseph and His Brethren is a low-budget Italian sword-and-sandals epic from a time of innocence when we were young, and as such has all the excesses of such films, including the obligatory scene with dancing girls. Seen as such, the movie is fun in a campy way, especially if one is in the mood for some Mystery Science Theater 3000 dialog with the screen. As an enactment of one of the most beloved accounts of the Bible, though -- well, judge for yourself.

The movie starts out well enough with some strong chemistry between Joseph (Geoffrey Horne) and his little brother, Benjamin, and a cleverly done scene in which Joseph sorts out a dispute over the ownership of sheep by enacting a Martin Gardner mind-teaser on screen. The scenes in which Joseph excites his older brothers' jealousy are serviceable, if not great.

Things start to take a turn for the strange, though, when the brothers sell Joseph to Ishmaelite traders named Muhammad and Ali, forsooth! In Egypt, though, Joseph rises at once in the world as in the slave market he saves the life of his future master, Potiphar, with arcane knowledge of the medical practice of bloodletting. In Potiphar's house Joseph becomes even more valued for his ability to make the best wine in Egpyt and his innovative practice of making his masters feel better by flogging them with branches. I guess that I've missed these abilities every time I've read Genesis through, but, oh, well.

Potiphar, as played by Robert Morley, is an amazing take on the Biblical character. Vain, snooty, suspicious, yet trusting, scatterbrained, and challenging a turnip in the IQ department, he provides some great comic relief, as unlikely as such a thing is in a Joseph epic. One can understand why his much younger wife Heneth (Belinda Lee, who wins the best-actor award for the movie) is unhappy with her husband. After an unintentionally comic entrance in which she calls out "Potiphar!" in exactly the same tone in which Lisa Douglas (Eva Gabor) called out "Oli-vah!" in Green Acres, Heneth becomes the movie's high point. Vain and petulant, yet charming and intelligent (by this movie's standards), she cleverly manipulates the men around her so that she can be with Joseph, who has an unfortunate tendency to look like a deer in the headlights around her. Alas, my copy of the movie deleted the scene in which she tries to seduce Joseph, so I likely missed the movie's best acting.

Joseph goes off to the mines, and it's sad that "The Song of the Volga Boatmen" wasn't playing in the background for the cartoonish scenes set there. In a remarkably offhand way, Joseph interprets the dreams of the cupbearer and the baker, and eventually gets to Pharaoh's court. Potiphar and Heneth, in the meantime, exit the story in one the most over-the-top scenes that I've seen, even in a sword-and-sandal epic. It's a scene worth seeing all for itself.

As the author of Asenath's Tale, I want to mention this movie's Asenath (Vira Silenti). As a fiery street revolutionary, the baker's bitterly grieving daughter, and a reproachful wife taking Joseph to task for mistreating his brother Simeon, she stole every scene in which she appeared with word-and-sandals overacting. She at least made the film come alive in its later stages, and I wish that there'd been more of her.

Sad to say, it wasn't hard to steal scenes from this movie's Joseph, who, after a promising start, basically sleepwalked through the rest of the movie. There was some good acting when a dignified, but self-pitying Jacob was on stage, but the resolution of the movie was perfunctory, not to mention conflated. The same could be said of most of the movie's Biblical elements: they were touched on, but overshadowed by bizarre inventions, such as Joseph's defeating the Syrian army in battle with a Great Flood. It helped matters little that none of Joseph's older brothers stood out from one another. They were all the generic scruffy, bearded extras of all of the other sword-and-sandals epics.

Over all, I'd say that you might find Joseph and His Brethren enjoyable if you watch it as campy fun, in the manner of Plan Nine from Outer Space. Just don't expect much in the way of Biblical accuracy, or serious story. (All right, I could've stopped that last sentence after, "Just don't expect much.") If you want to see a truly good treatment of the Joseph story, though, run, don't walk, for the Bible Collection Joseph.