GROSS/57 1966 preview - The Bible… a lovable, slow-moving pachyderm from the very end of its era

Yes, another biblical epic. But it's the last one. And it's by John Huston.

GROSS is every year’s top-grossing movie, since 1913, reviewed.

THE BIBLE: IN THE BEGINNING… Ulla Bergryd, Ava Gardner, George C. Scott; directed by John Huston. 174 minutes. Wikipedia, IMDB, Letterboxd.

John Huston’s biblical epic will surprise you. It surprised me. I’ve been avoiding The Bible for a long time, although probably without ever thinking about it, really. I’d never have gone near it if it weren’t for this exercise. But I’m up to 1966 and it’s the top-grossing movie of that year so it must be watched and absorbed.

It’s the last of the epics but it’s not like the others. I’m ready to admit that I’m kind of in love with this one (I know!). A lot is missing. The beligerence of Ben Hur, to begin with. The stupid, cold-war bluster of The Ten Commandments and the grinding pathos of Spartacus too. It feels a thousand miles from the deep-plush high camp of Samson and Delilah.

‘The Bible: In the Beginning…’, to give it its full name, is a generous, oddly peacable work of art: a slow-moving pachyderm of a movie. A quite undramatic retelling of the first 22 chapters of the Old Testament (the language is mostly straight from the King James version and its occasional awkwardness is kind of endearing). There are some big stars but you wouldn’t know it. They’re all humble as anything, in service of the story (usually wearing some kind of rough, hooded robe) and there are a lot of absolute unknowns, including our Eve, Ulla Bergryd, who was an anthropology student walking around a museum in Gothenburg less than a week before her first scene.

A lot of relatively anonymous actors wander mournfully in various bleak landscapes. It’s all quite European: I’m sure you can see Passolini’s The Gospel According to St Matthew, released a couple of years earlier, here. On this production you get a strong sense that everyone’s trailer was the same size, even Ava Gardner’s. Anyway, a full review will follow. I might try and squeeze in a comparison with Paradise Lost…

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• This is one of those occasions where, if I had any humility, I’d just provide a link to Pauline Kael’s splendid review and not bother writing one of my own.

• One of the lists says that 1966’s top-grossing movie was Hawaii, a film I did not know existed until about five minutes ago and that I also learn starred Julie Andrews - which would mean she’d starred in two top-grossing movies in succession. I guess that explains the enormous Long Island mansion (and the other mansions).

• Is it gross to study only the movies that gross most? It’s obviously to a large degree a meaningless measure. This one, for instance, was an enormous hit but lost money anyway. It must have been Huston’s personal top-grossing movie, though, right? Could anything else he made have come close to $25.3M ($245M in 2025 money)?

• A colon and an ellipsis? Come on.