Welcome to "Saturday Night at the Movies".

I'm your host, Glenn Holland.

Tonight's film is the 1965 biblical epic "The Greatest Story Ever Told", directed by George Stevens, based on a novel adapted from a radio series, ultimately derived from the four Gospels.

The movie presents the life of Jesus of Nazareth from his birth to his crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension.

The film stars Max von Sydow as Jesus, with a host of well-known movie faces in both major and minor supporting roles.

Among them are Claude Rains in his final movie role, Charlton Heston, Sidney Poitier, Roddy McDowall, Jose Ferrer, Shelley Winters, Van Heflin, Angela Lansbury, Sal Mineo, Ed Wynn, and John Wayne in a cameo as a Roman centurion.

There are also several future television notables in the cast, including David MacCallum, Telly Savalas and Jamie Farr, best known as Clinger in the "M *A *S *H" television series.

The movie begins with the story of Jesus' birth and its aftermath.

Herod the Great, the Roman-appointed King of Judea, is visited by three magi seeking a newborn child who is to be the Messiah, the divinely appointed savior foretold by the prophets.

The magi have followed a star and seek guidance to the child's birthplace.

The king's advisors tell them, according to prophecy, the child will be found in Bethlehem, the city of David.

The magi depart, but Herod sends men after them to see whether what the magi have told him is true.

The magi find the child with his parents, Mary and Joseph, but spotting one of Herod's spies, they quickly depart for their own country.

A voice warns Joseph to flee to Egypt with Mary and their baby, while Herod sends his men to Bethlehem to kill all the male children under two years old.

When Herod dies, Joseph and his family return to Palestine and their home city of Nazareth.

Many years later, a wilderness prophet named John the Baptist calls the people of Judea to repent and be baptized in the River Jordan.

Among the many who flock to hear him is Jesus, the son of Mary and Joseph, who asked to be baptized, despite John's reluctance to do so.

Once he is baptized, Jesus is tempted by the Devil in the wilderness before calling his first disciples and beginning his ministry of teaching and healing the sick.

But all the time, the authorities in Jerusalem, both the Romans and the Jewish leaders, are keeping watch over his movements, ready to strike against him if he threatens their authority and power.

"The Greatest Story Ever Told", like many another ethnic motion picture, had a long trip to the screen.

It began as an ABC radio series about the life of Jesus that ran for 10 years, from 1947 to 1957.

The series, created by Henry Denker, was turned into a novel by one of its contributors, Fulton Oursler, in 1949.

His book was translated into 12 languages and went on to sell over 3 1/4 million copies in the United States alone.

In 1954, after a year of negotiations, 20th Century Fox secured the motion picture rights of the novel for a total price of $2 million.

But Fox did very little about the project until veteran director George Stevens was signed to head the production in 1958.

Stevens consulted with religious authorities and famous writers, including poet Carl Sandburg, in the process of constructing a screenplay.

He hired an artist to produce 352 conceptual oil paintings and set location scouts to Israel for six weeks to find suitable places for the movie to be shot.

Fox withdrew support for the project in 1960, as the cost for its Egyptian spectacle "Cleopatra" soared after spending $2.3 million for Stevens' work without a foot of film to show for it.

Stevens sought other backing and eventually made the film with United Artists.

Ultimately, Stevens decided to shoot the movie in the United States, using locations in Arizona, Nevada, Utah, and California's Death Valley.

"I wanted to get an effect of grandeur as a background to Christ," he told the press, "and none of the Holy Land areas shaped up with the excitement of the American Southwest.

Our intention is to romanticize the area and it can be done better here."

To ensure the financial success of "The Greatest Story Ever Told, Director George Stevens followed the lead of other epic motion pictures of the time and cast scores of well-known movie stars.

Many of them anxious for a chance to work with such a respected director.

Most of them appear in supporting or cameo roles often as embedded characters like Ed Wynn as Old Aram, Van Heflin as Bar Armand, or Sal Mineo as Uriah.

For the central role of Jesus, George Stevens wanted a relatively unknown actor who would not be associated with previous parts out of keeping with the reverential tone of the film.

He chose Swedish actor Max von Sydow known primarily for his work with Director Ingmar Bergman in such films as "The Seventh Seal" of 1956.

Since this was to be Von Sydow's American debut, he had to work hard to perfect his spoken English.

He later complained that because of the expectations associated with this role, he couldn't smoke, have a drink after work, or show affection for his wife on the set.

Stevens chose lesser known actors to play Jesus' Disciples and the Jewish authorities, although several went on to greater fame on television.

In addition to David McCallum, Telly Savalas, and Jamie Farr, these included David Hedison, Martin Landau, Robert Blake, and Russell Johnson, best known as the Professor on Gilligan's Island.

Shooting "The Greatest Story Ever Told" in the deserts of Utah and Arizona led to unexpected problems.

One was finding the necessary number of extras.

Members of local Navajo tribes were recruited to play Roman Legionnaires, but they left to vote in tribal elections to be replaced by ROTC candidates from a local high school.

The Arizona Department of Welfare provided disabled recipients of state aid to play the sick and the suffering clamoring for healing.

The vast crowds of extras required George Stevens to direct them with a handheld microphone hooked up to loud speakers, giving instructions and encouragement as the scenes were shot.

The set recreating first century Jerusalem was built in Glen Canyon, Arizona at a cost of over a million dollars.

Every morning, crew members had to clear out rattlesnakes and Gila monsters to ensure the actor's safety.

As the filming dragged on for months due in large part to Stevens' habitual practice of shooting the same scene over and over from different angles, winter set in and subjected the cast to freezing temperatures.

Just after Christmas, a blizzard buried the elaborate sets under several feet of snow, requiring the efforts of the entire cast and crew with shovels, bulldozers, and flame throwers to clear it away.

The efforts of what "Variety" called "possibly the highest salaried work gang in history" were soon foiled when more snow fell leading Stevens to move the production back to Hollywood.

By the time Steven's finished, he had shot 6 million feet for about 1,136 miles of Ultra Panovision 70 film.

The movie's final budget was $20 million, over $189 million today, making it the most expensive film ever shot in the United States and second only to "Cleopatra" as the costliest film made to that time.

Unfortunately, many critics found "The Greatest Story Ever Told" overly reverential, like a slow-paced pageant recorded on film.

Von Sydow's Jesus was literally presented as a devotional painting brought to life.

He spoke in slow measured tones and never blinked.

A reviewer for "Newsweek" wrote, "He hardly varies "his expression, which is one of mild suffering, "as if he had a pebble in his sandal."

Bosley Crowther wrote in the "New York Times", "The most distracting nonsense is the pop up "of familiar faces in so-called cameo roles, "jarring the illusion."

For many, the primary complaint about "The Greatest Story Ever Told" was its length.

It premiered at four hours and 20 minutes.

It was then shortened to just under four hours, then three hours, 17 minutes and finally two hours and 27 minutes.

Even so, there were those who felt it was still slow moving with too many crowd scenes and demanded too much patience from it's audiences.

One studio executive summed up this attitude after an early screening.

He said, "They should have called it "The Longest Story Ever Told"."

Whatever the cause, "The Greatest Story Ever Told" was not a success.

The expected hordes of pious churchgoers never materialized.

By 1983, the film had not yet grossed $8 million, less than 20% of what it would need to break even.

But by then it had been surpassed as Hollywood's most expensive failure by Michael Cimino's, 1980 Western disaster, "Heavens Gate".

Please join us again next time for another "Saturday Night at the Movies".

I'm Glenn Holland.

Goodnight.