Cecil B. DeMille’s career as a director and producer spans five decades of motion pictures. He is best known as the creator of visually lush epics such as The Ten Commandments, The Crusades, Cleopatra, and reportedly his favorite, The King Of Kings, an elaborate yet reverent use of film to tell “the greatest story ever told”.

The story follows the last weeks of Jesus, the Christ (as the character is billed) with DeMille taking some literary license to aid his narrative, but mostly staying true to the gospel account. It opens in glorious two-strip Technicolor with Mary Magdalene running a decadent “house of pleasure” (which feels remarkably like a 1920’s speakeasy) and missing her paramour, Judas Iscariot (this being one example of DeMille’s “literary licenses”). Upon learning that Judas has fallen under the influence of a Nazarene carpenter, Mary sets off to confront the one called Jesus, only to find hundreds of the sick and lame waiting for a moment with the master.

We finally meet Him working miracles in the temple surrounded by His many disciples. When a little girl asks Jesus to heal her doll’s broken leg, He looks bemused and fixes the toy by hand. Judas encourages Jesus to work His mighty powers to become a great King over Israel and purge the Romans. Proud Mary is captured by the temple priests who want to stone her for her immorality. Jesus admonishes that he who is without sin should cast the first stone. As each man approaches, Jesus scrawls in the sand and the Hebrew words turn to English, revealing their sins.

After Jesus throws out the merchants and moneychangers from the temple, High Priest Caiaphas demands that Christ be arrested and Judas is pressured to betray Him. Pontius Pilate issues the death penalty and Jesus is forced to carry his own cross to the Cavalry. During the Resurrection, the film once again switches to color, just in time for the final spectacular scenes of the Lord’s wrath upon the wicked, with great flashes of lightning, earthquakes swallowing people whole, and of course, the temple veil being rent.

In light of several scandals that plagued Hollywood in the late 1920’s, DeMille had numerous clergy bless the production before the cameras even began rolling and, it is reported, insisted that his actors sign contracts promising that they would not engage in any “un-Christian”Â? behavior during the film’s production. The film is shot as a series of magnificent tableaus evoking nineteenth century Biblical paintings, with fantastic sets and (for their day) spectacular effects. As portrayed by actor H.B. Warner, Jesus appears not as a feminine creation of Renaissance painters, but as a strong and gentle man filled with righteous forboding.

A consummate showman who knew better than anyone how to promote both his films and himself, DeMille went on to make seventy features, including westerns, adventures, musical comedies and war pictures, before his death in 1959.

This print of The King of Kings is courtesy of Gordon’s Films, Inc.