The Greatest Story Ever Told

Plot

The story begins with three wise men following a star to Jerusalem, looking for a newborn king foretold by prophecy. King Herod, paranoid about his throne, secretly sends spies after learning the child is in Bethlehem. The wise men find Jesus in a stable with Mary and Joseph, offering gifts. Warned by an angel, the family escapes to Egypt just before Herod orders the massacre of Bethlehem’s infant boys.

Herod dies soon after, and they return to Nazareth. Years later, Judea is under Roman rule. Herod Antipas dismisses messianic hopes, while John the Baptist preaches repentance by the Jordan. Jesus, now grown, is baptized by John and then goes into the wilderness, where a Dark Hermit tempts him three times.

Back in Galilee, Jesus gathers disciples, including fishermen Peter, Andrew, John, and the skeptical Judas Iscariot. He teaches in parables, heals a crippled man, and draws crowds. In Capernaum, he recruits the tax collector Matthew, alarming the Pharisees. Herodias, Herod Antipas’s wife, has John the Baptist arrested for condemning her marriage.

Jesus spares Mary Magdalene from stoning, heals a bleeding woman, and feeds five thousand with a few loaves. In Nazareth, locals reject him, demanding proof of divinity. He raises Lazarus from the dead in Bethany, stunning witnesses and alarming Jerusalem’s leaders. Herod, learning Jesus survived his father’s massacre, executes John and orders Jesus’s arrest.

Jesus accepts anointing from Mary Magdalene, rides into Jerusalem hailed as king, drives merchants from the Temple, and at the Last Supper predicts Judas’s betrayal and Peter’s denials. Judas then conspires with priests for thirty silver coins.

Production

The story began as a U.S. radio series in 1947, with half-hour episodes penned by Henry Denker and based on the four Gospels. Two years later, Fulton Oursler, a senior editor at Reader's Digest, turned the series into a novel. In May 1954, Darryl F. Zanuck, then chairman of 20th Century Fox, bought the film rights to Oursler’s book, paying $110,000 upfront plus a cut of the gross. Denker wrote a script draft, but the studio never started production.

The project was dropped when Zanuck left the company in 1956. In November 1958, while directing The Diary of Anne Frank at Fox, George Stevens learned the studio owned the rights. He formed a company called The Greatest Story Productions to make the film. The studio set a $10 million budget, double any previous figure.

That same month, a competing religious film, King of Kings, was in the works. Fox president Spyros Skouras tried but failed to buy that project from producer Samuel Bronston and MGM. In June 1960, Fox quit the Motion Picture Association of America, partly due to the two films' similarities.

Release

The biblical epic premiered on February 15, 1965, at New York City's Warner Cinerama Theatre, a full 18 months after filming ended. It then opened at the Cinerama Dome in Los Angeles and in Miami Beach two days later. On March 9, 1965, it arrived in Philadelphia and Detroit, followed by an edited version in Washington, D.C. at the Uptown Theater on March 10. That same day, it also opened in Chicago, Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh, with a Boston premiere on March 11.

A shorter cut was released in Chicago in February 1967. The New York premiere ran between 221 and 225 minutes, not counting a 10-minute intermission, though the original cut was 260 minutes. For the Washington, D.C. release, 28 minutes were removed to tighten the pacing without cutting any scenes, and these trims were later applied to other prints. The film was further shortened to between 137 and 141 minutes for its general U.S. release.

The marketing campaign created exhibits for churches, Sunday schools, department stores, and schools. The Smithsonian Institution organized a traveling exhibition of props, costumes, and photographs that toured museums nationwide. Promotional materials included school study guides, children's books, and a reprint of the original novel by Oursler. Previews were held for leading industrialists, psychologists, government officials, and religious leaders.

Although advertised as Cinerama and shown on an ultra-curved screen, it used only one projector, unlike true Cinerama which required three.

Reception

Three weeks after opening at the Warner Cinerama, the film had earned nearly $250,000 in advance ticket sales. Based on ticket sales and advanced reserve-seating ticket sales before Easter, United Artists vice president Eugene Picker told Variety that the film was way ahead of any other previous UA hard-tickets. One year into its release, the film had earned $12.1 million worldwide, equally split across domestic and international territories. This was far less than the $35–38 million gross needed to break even.

Months after release, United Artists wrote off 60 percent of the film's negative cost, later recouping the cost by selling television rights to NBC for $5 million. Steven D. Greydanus believed the film's inability to connect with audiences discouraged future productions of biblical epics for decades. Bosley Crowther of The New York Times described the film as the world's most conglomerate Biblical picture with scenes in which the grandeur of nature is brilliantly used, but felt scenes of Jesus preaching were too repetitive and cameo roles jarring.

Robert J. Landry of Variety called it a big, powerful moving picture and praised von Sydow's performance. James Powers of The Hollywood Reporter stated Stevens had created a novel, reverent and important film.