I was watching The Robe, in which Victor Mature, who used to show emotion by
making the hair on his brow move back slightly, plays Demetrius the Gladiator.
It's the night Jesus is to be betrayed and there's a right Shakesperian storm
booming. Blue Hollywood crepuscule, a narrow, vaguely Jerusalemic street
leading to a high crossroads. Demetrius, panicking, rushing to warn Jesus,
bustles on scene from the foreground, sees a huddled figure in an empurpled
doorway, turns, and yells, "Have yew seen Jesus, the one they call the
Christ". Agonising pause. A deep voice off answers in a lion growl but with
sundry peculiar utterances: "Why must men sin? What is there in humans that
drives them to destruction?" etc. Demetrius's eyes blurt and his hair moves
back. Then, seeing he's picked a wrongun, our gladiator hurries on up hill,
pauses on the troubled skyline, whisks his cloak, and calls back down: "But
who are you?"
Lion growl: "MY NAME IS . . . JUDAS!"
Pkshaaaaaauuuuuwwww! Pkshaaaaaauuuuuwwww! Smashoooooooom! (Lightning,
thunder). Demetrius pauses for his profile, then walks off with giant
strides.
Tell you how far back this was: in those days you could smoke in cinemas. A
stranger in the next seat dug me in the ribs. "Here," he said. "Look at
this." He had been so moved at this scene that his hands had sweated
copiously and his fingers had wetted the outside layers of his cigarette. The
tobacco core had burnt right through the gap leaving the outside paper
untouched and his fingers unharmed.
These may the best lines ever written or the worst, I don't presume to judge,
but that it was sheer poetry I HAVE NO DOUBT AT ALL.
Doug
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