13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A bizarre religious epic!, February 10, 2009
This review is from: The Silver Chalice (DVD)
Based on a best-seller by Thomas B. Costain, and directed by Victor Saville, "The Silver Chalice" was one of the studio's early CinemaScope films, and was really a variation on Fox's "The Robe," the first CinemaScope movie that had been a huge success in 1953... The action follows a group of Christians who are dedicated to preserving Christ's Holy Cup twenty years after the Last Supper...
Since Newman had the lead as a young Greek silversmith, sold into slavery, then chosen by the Christians to design a chalice for the Cup, becomes involved in battles and orgies, and must decide between the pagan world represented by a courtesan (Virginia Mayo) and the Christian world represented by his young, innocent wife (Pier Angeli). There is also a mad pagan magician (Jack Palance), who wants to destroy the chalice and establish his own religion, replacing Christ's miracles with black magic...
Newman was ideally cast as a Greek, because of his classic features, but he makes his film debut at particularly unfortunate time... 1954 was the year of "The Wild One" and "On the Waterfront," and Brando was at the height of his popularity...
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Stupefyingly Bad, August 5, 2010
This review is from: The Silver Chalice (DVD)
Make absolutely no mistake about it - Paul Newman was 100% correct when he asserted that The Silver Chalice was the worst studio film of the 1950s. It is jaw-droppingly, stunningly incomprehensibly bad - perhaps the worst big-budget movie ever made in the second half of the 20th century. Of course, this does not mean that it is without its charms and its pleasures, but be warned they are not the pleasures to be found in low-budget 1950s science fiction or in poorly dubbed spaghetti westerns or kung fu epics. Instead, they are pleasures of a different sort - the pleasure of watching the relentless unfolding of a cinematic spectacle so ill-conceived, so terrible-looking, so poorly cast, and so badly plotted that you simply cannot believe what you are seeing. In fact, I find it impossible to watch the film all the way through in one continuous viewing - you simply have to turn it off now and then just get some re-grasp on reality. There is no need to go into detail about individual performances, although Virginia Mayo will absolutely flatten you. It is really the overall look, flow, and plotline of this movie that extracts the continuous gasp of disbelief. What is up with those post-apocalyptic minimalist sets out of a Kubrick nightmare? Why does the brother of the guy who adopts the young Paul Newman hate him so much, and isn't there something a little creepy in the adoption to begin with? Why is the dang cup being made in the first place? Why is Natalie Wood a platinum blonde? The answer to these and other questions certainly does not lie in this movie - but if high-gloss hideousness if your cup of tea, skol!
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Oh Jesus, I Can't Make This Cup, April 8, 2010
This review is from: The Silver Chalice (DVD)
The thing that makes me roar every time I see this film is how embarrassed Paul Newman was by it. He took out a full page ad in the "LA Times" one year when he heard it was playing at a prominent theater. The ad was an official apology to fans for how bad the movie and the acting was.
In truth, it is an old-fashioned kind of theatrical acting, which really should have died by this time in film history. It did not die out, and Newman was also nervous in this, his first film. He need not have been, he need only have acted his role as best he could. Apparently he didn't think he did.
The sets are a marvel: I don't know where the locations were--probably sets--but the sparse, OUR TOWN props and the weirdly abstract sets are eye-popping. To me, that was as experimental as it got in the 1950s as I recall seeing this as a kid. The story, alternating between Jerusalem and Antioch in Turkey, is a basic rip-off of THE ROBE as one critic indicated.
It isn't too bad as stories go...a "Greek" Antiochian sculptor is adopted by a wealthy patron as a boy. Once the patron dies, the patron's evil brother sells the now-adult sculptor into slavery. His reputation precedes him, as St. Peter himself--still alive at the time--knows about him. How?
Well, it seems Joseph of Arimathea sends for Newman to build a reliquary silver chalice to hold the Holy Grail...this is a point audiences tend to miss. The chalice-reliquary needs two final touches: the face of Peter and the face of Jesus. Peter (Lorne Greene) is easy enough to do. Jesus, well, he's gone and Newman must play the anguished artist who has missed the train, so to say. Never fear...thanks to St. Luke's endeavors early on, Newman eventually converts to Christianity. How sweet!!
The situation is not helped by a nutty Jack Palance as Simon Magus (Simon the Magician, a well-known New Testament figure). He's dying to show Rome that he is the true messiah, due to the fact that he's a total wacko. Palance does the role great justice.
I urge everyone to see this film, though you may find yourself wanting to switch it off. I say don't, watch it all at least once and get a feel for the experimentation that was in the air in the 1950s. Just try not to laugh to hard at Newman's "knobby knees" [I quoteth mine wife here].
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