THE GREAT COMMANDMENT

New Zealand Listener, Volume 6, Issue 137, 6 February 1942, Page 14

THE GREAT COMMANDMENT

(Cathedral Films-20th Centurv Fox)

ALTHOUGH it has just been released here, this film was actually made in 1939 B.J. (Before Japan). That much should be obvious

to almost anyone who sees it, for it is the story of how the early Christians faced and at last overcame Roman aggression- not by the sword but by putting into practice that more revolutionary portion of Christ’s teaching regarding the ideal attitude to be adopted toward an enemy. The fact that the film’s message may now seem a trifle untimely does not necessarily rob the message of its potency, though that may be a matter for argument. Much less debatable is

the fact that The Great Commandment is a religious picture that also manages to be entertaining. And that is something that has seldom been attempted in Hollywood and even more rarely achieved. I don’t know how accurate the picture is historically-I mean, of course, in matters of detail-but if it is even roughly true it would appear that even the Nazis could not have given any points on collective punishment of villages, mass executions, and other refinements of intimidation to the Roman conquerors of Judea before the latter were at last converted by the people they had conquered. It is to met this dire oppression in the only way he knows how that the hero of the story, Joel, a young Jewish zealot (John Beal) sets out from his threatened village against the wishes of his father,

the aged Scribe Lamech (the late Maurice Moscovitch), whose only interest is in the Law and the Prophets. With him Joel takes the historic sword of Judas Maccabeus, and goes to give it into the hands of the man Jesus of Nazareth to carry into battle against the Romans at the head of a Jewish army. Reports speak of this Jesus as a man of much influence with the people: if he will but lead them to war, Judea may be saved. But what Joel finds and what he learns is very different from what he expects; yet as a result, though he becomes an outcast among his own people, he does succeed in saving them from punishment, by turning their army chief, a Roman centurion, into a friend; and he does succeed-rather a sop to popular sentiment this-in winning the girl he loves. This untimely parable of applied Christianity, the work of an American parson with some ready money and the ambition to be a movie producer, does not forget, as I have said, that the chief purpose of even a religious film should be entertainment. While it is somewhat incongrous to hear ancient Romans and Jews speaking with the accents of modern America, there is nothing ofthe Church Drama Circle about the acting of Beal, Moscoyitch, Marjorie Cooley (who looks like Rochelle Hudson’s twin sister) and others. Nor has the sacredness and sombreness of the theme precluded many good touches of humour and human interest. But most effective of all is the film’s representation of Christ: he does not appear except as a shadowy figure, or as.a reflection in a pool, but His Voice (the voice, I think, of Sir Cedric Hardwicke) dominates the story with its melodious power as it expounds the message of The Great Commandment.