The legacy of "The Robe" is widely associated with a technical advance named "Cinemascope" for it was the first film to use the anamorphic process and used a great deal of imagery that couldn't have been possible before or not without looking abominably flat or distorted. So Joseph Koster, an unknown name to assume, should be commanded for that landmark and his peplum while not the equal of "Ben-Hur" is enjoyable to the degree that we let our eyes being dazzled by the magnificently projected Antique look ... and a few laudable performances, Richard Burton on top of them.
However, I hold rewatchability as an important quality in a film and while "The Robe" does look good -and good is an understatement- it failed to generate a desire to watch it again. I admit I'm not a big fan of swords-and-sandals film to begin with but that it earned Burton his first Oscar nomination was more than an encouragement. Yet even Burton with his hypnotic eyes and Jean Simmons with her delicate beauty couldn't save the film from its rather tedious and predictable script, severely lacking the thrills or subtle detachment that can elevate costume dramas above the made-for-big-screen spectacle. And while I could appreciate "Quo Vadis" for Peter Ustinov's demented and yet pathetically suave portrayal of Nero but the antagonism in "The Robe" is weakly represented in Jay Robinson.
So the film is just feast for the eyes and it's unjust to ignore the visual achievement, but I take it as the quality that Koster embraced with so much zeal that it blinded him. Producers probably believed in the magic of the Cinemascope as fervently as the first Christians and thus the film was afflicted with an obsession to fill the screen as much as possible at the expenses of more introspective and intimate scenes that could be enjoyed on the more modest scale of a television. And so we have crowded Roman streets and overdecorated palaces which instead of being the apparatus to better engage us in the story, actually distract us from it, not even letting room for some face-to-face confrontations. Did we need a complete view on Marcellus' house when he confronted his slave? Did we need the azure coast in the background when Marcellus returned to Diana?
It's sad really for there was a lot to offer in that story and the whole first act is a strong build-up to the whole Christic sequence. We see Burton as Tribune Marcellus Gallo, an irreverent ladies' man who doesn't think much of the Emperor's heir Caligula and demonstrate his impetuousness by challenging him during a slave auction. He buys Demetrius, a strong Greek slave played by Victor Mature and let him free... to join his father's domus, which the slave does indirectly pledging his everlasting loyalty. But Marcellus must pay the price to his insolence and so he's assigned to Jerusalem unknowing that one of his missions will involve perhaps the one whose fate was cast by the clean hands of Pontius Pilate. At that part, characters were fully established; the rebellious hero, the dulcinea, the big guy with a good heart and all it needed was a true momentum.
Unfortunately, Koster is so invigorated by the triumphant trumpets of Rome and the religious chorus that he leaves cinema speaking its own informal language while more was needed to develop the characters. Demetrius is certainly the most important character besides Marcellus and it is important to see his soul shifting from the sworn loyalty to his master to a total obedience to the King of all Kings. But the figure of Christ is shown as a too sacralized figure to even be glimpsed at and so we see the intense eyes of Demetrius telling us what he saw in the Messiah, the question is: is that enough? It's one thing to deify someone but surely some skeptical members of the audience deserved more. Remember the scene in "Ben-Hur", the Christ wasn't just a presence, he was the providential helper, the one who gave Judah water. We needn't see him but we could see his divinity within Charlton Heston's grateful eyes, what we see in Mature's eye is just instinctive deification, not the right material to build the conflict that will drive the protagonist.
This is not a technicality, since the whole power of the film relies on the figure of the Christ and the mounting guilt in Marcellus' heart , it's frustrating that we're not left with some moment that could have explained that change of spirit, the film was rather linear in the treatment, you could sum it up in three distinct parts: Marcellus' faults, his guilt and then his redemption, but how the film goes from one stage to the other is one of the script's failures. Burton has the kind of physicality and expressiveness in the eyes that fit the figure of the antihero but his transition toward Christianity is weakened by a script that only weight his evolution with a few testimonies and one confrontation with Demetrius that deserved more direct dialogues and more screen-time. But time was to be left for action sequences, one involving a duel, a help to escape a jail, a few thrills here and there but these moments seem rather formulaic and end up as flat as if the movie was shot with the old ratio.
The final act is reasonably more efficient and has an awaited confrontation between Marcellus and Caligula, once again, a scene that could have been longer and could go without the rainbows of togas around, I suspect half of Burton's Oscar worthiness lied within that final act and the ending with bells rung and Alleluias sung had a powerful resonance. But such a grand ending needed a more character-driven plot and less grandiosity. Ultimately, "The Cinemascope" process is more known a name than "The Robe" and Burton would be remembered for more powerful roles.
