David y Betsabé

The film focuses the epic David-life (1010-970 B.C.) , retelling his complicated family relationship (rebellion his son Absalom ) and generally tackling the intricacies of his love story with Bathsheba . He's a very human figure who is recorded in the Bible (Samuel, Books 1 and 2), conqueror Jerusalen and author of the Psalms . It tells from the prophet Samuel (Raymond Massey) appointed him , when after in his kingdom Saul (Francis X Bushman) and his son Jonathan were vanquished by Philistines . When Saul was murdered by a blade slashed himself, David (Peck) claimed his reign by right of his marriage to Saul's daughter(Jane Meadows) . The continued threat and domination of invaders countries forced the Jewish tribes uniting under a strong king : David. He's specially recorded for his acquisition of his favorite spouse , Bathsheba (Susan Hayward), though he had a harem , too . The new wife was accomplished by sending her husband named Uria (Kieron Moore) the Hitita , a warrior serving as mercenary, into way in war. His throne was marred by the habitual dynastic fights between his sons , Absalom (Barnett) killed Ammon and after rebelled and was murdered . There are also developed various events about David-life , such as the arrival in Jerusalen the Ark of the Covenant with supernatural qualities ; David playing harp , in fact , David had entered Saul's household as a sort of musical therapist , the Hebrew politics intrigues and pitting against the Old Testament wrath of the Prophet Nathan and , of course , David- Goliath fighting is seen in flashback , defeating with a throwing wave a ten-foot-tall Philistine giant . Later rebellion Absalon and killing Ammon , succeeded Salomon , son of Bathseba , he inherited the reign at David'death and became himself a major king of Israel , building the famous temple of Salomon where held the Ark . David and Salomon were the two great kings of Israel.

Interesting Biblical story with emotion , rousing battles , an intense drama about love and hatred , being some moments proceeded in slow moving pace . And including the legendary biblical fight between David and Goliath is well featured in the movie by means of flashbacks . The film's story from the Bible was based upon its books of Samuel I and II, Chronicles I and the Psalms of David . Very good acting by main cast , Gregory Peck and Susan Hayward ; Peck stated that the movie was written as an attack on McCarthyism, which he strongly opposed . This Biblical epic contains good set decoration and art direction (Thomas Little , Lyle Weeler, George Davis) but is a little boring and dull with long speeches that it makes stately pace , especially when David is praying in the Tabernacle where is the Ark of Covenant . The movie gets a colorful cinematography and evocative music score by the classic Alfred Newman . The motion picture was professionally directed by Henry King. His direction is well crafted , here he develops a thought-provoking and broody screenplay . He was a expert on compelling Adventure/Western genre . Henry King directed classic Western as ¨ Jesse James(1939)¨, ¨The gunfighter(1950)¨ and ¨The Bravados¨¨ (1958) with Peck again . Koster was specialist on Adventure genre as proved in ¨Untamed¨ , ¨Captain King¨ , ¨Captain of Castilla¨ , ¨Black Swan¨ , ¨Stanley and Livingstone¨ ¨and many others .

Other films about this Biblical king are the following : ¨David and Goliat¨ (1961) by Ferdinando Baldi with Orson Welles as King Saul , Ivo Payer as David and Edward Hilton as Prophet Samuel ; ¨A Story of David¨ (1961) with Jeff Chandler , Basil Sidney and Donald Pleasence , ¨King David¨ (1985) by Bruce Beresford with Richard Gere , Alice Krige , Dennis Quilley , Jean Marc Bar and Edward Woodward . And ¨The Story of David¨ (1976) (TV) by David Lowell Rich with Timothy Bottoms , Anthony Quayle , ¨David¨ (1997) TV by Robert Markowitz with Nathaniel Parker as David , Jonathan Pryce as Saul , Leonard Nimoy as Samuel , Sheryl Lee as Bathsheba and Ben Daniels as Jonathan

I've always believed that David and Bathsheba was a film originally intended for Tyrone Power at 20th Century Fox, although Gregory Peck does give a good account of himself as King David, the monarch with a wandering eye.

A whole lot of biblical subjects get covered in this film, adultery, redemption, sin, punishment and generally what God expects from his followers.

When you're a king, even king in a biblically prophesied kingdom you certainly do have a lot of prerogatives not open to the rest of us. King David has many wives, including one really vicious one in Jayne Meadows who was the daughter of Saul, David's predecessor. But his eyes catch sight of Bathsheba out in her garden one evening. Turns out she's as unhappily married to Uriah the Hittite as David is to quite a few women. Uriah is one of David's army captains. David sends for Bathsheba and him being the King, she comes a runnin' because she's had her eye on him too.

What happens, an affair, a pregnancy, and a carefully arranged death for Uriah in a battle. But an all seeing and knowing Deity has caught all of this and is not only punishing David and Bathsheba, but the entire Kingdom of Israel is being punished with drought, disease, and pestilence.

The sexist law of the day calls for Bathsheba to have a stoning death. David shows weakness in his previous actions, but here he steps up to the plate and asks that the whole thing be put on him. He even lays hands on the Ark of the Covenant which was an instant death as seen in the film.

My interpretation of it is that God admires guts even if you're wrong and he lets up on David and forgives them both. Bathsheba becomes the mother of Solomon and she and David are the ancestors of several successors in the divided kingdoms of Israel and Judah until they're both conquered.

Susan Hayward is a fetching Bathsheba caught in a loveless marriage with Uriah played by Kieron Moore. The only thing that gets Moore aroused is a good battle. I liked Kieron Moore's performance as a brave and rather stupid horse's rear.

No one can lay the law down like Raymond Massey. His Nathan the Prophet is in keeping with the John Brown character he played in two films, same intensity.

So when His own law called for death, why did God spare Bathsheba and keep David on the throne. Maybe it was the fact He just didn't want to train a third guy for the job. He'd replaced Saul with David already.

But I think the Christian interpretation might be that this was a hint of the New Testament forthcoming, that one might sin and receive mercy if one asks for it penitently. I'll leave it to the biblical scholars to submit interpretations.

Watch the film and you might come up with an entirely new theory.

Unlike the classic biblical masterpieces of Technicolor days, "The Ten Commandments", "Samson and Delilah", "Sodom and Gomorrah", etc, this biblical film is not about the power and wrath of God. Instead, it's a very intimate story of a man's fall from grace and how he tries to find it again.

While it can be approached literally as the story of King David's sins which brought drought, death and pestilence upon Israel, it is truly a secular story of a man who has lost his boyhood innocence. The power of the film rests in Gregory Peck's hypnotizing performance toward the end when, having hit rock bottom, he must answer for his life.

Whatever religion you subscribe to, or none at all, this is such a powerful human theme because inevitably we all lose our way. Peck plays King David as a sort of religious skeptic, always investigating the scientific explanation behind supposedly supernatural events. And that diffuses the "biblical" aspect of the film so that we may enjoy it on any level.

ABOUT THE PLOT... If you've studied the Bible, then you probably know the story and how it turns out. But if you're totally ignorant of the tale like I was, then I guarantee you'll have a great time. The suspense of not knowing how this volatile situation will play out is breathtaking. With that in mind, I won't say a thing about the plot, and I suggest you avoid any discussion of it. All you need to know is it's about 2 people named David and Bathsheba.

About acting, technique and music. Very nice with only 1 minor complaint. In keeping with the times (1951) this can be a melodramatic film, and by that I point the finger at the music. Certain powerful, dramatic scenes are made a little syrupy with the characteristic lush Hollywood symphonic music of the Technicolor age. However, there are a few amazing scenes where Gregory Peck delivers his monologues in absolute silence, with a tight, stationary camera on his face, and those are the aforementioned scenes that are so strong they'll bring a tear to your eye.

Directed by Henry King who, despite his masterpieces, never won an academy award in his 50 year career, "David and Bathsheba" is so impressive it makes me want to immediately run to the video store and check out his other films, particularly those he made with his favorite leading man Gregory Peck ("Twelve O'Clock High", "Snows of Kilimanjaro", etc). Susan Hayward did a great job, too. But this is really Peck's film, and King wasn't shy about using Peck to the fullest. Don't hesitate to see this film if you ever get the chance.

This film is famous for several qualities: a literate script, for once in partly-religious film-making, by Philip Dunne, some very good performances, a first-rate production in every department and its intelligent direction by veteran Henry King. If one were making a film, then getting such talents as Leon Shamroy as cinematographer, Lyle Wheeler as art director and Alfred Newman as composer of original music would guarantee a quality production. Add the cast of this film, including Gregory Peck and Susan Hayward as the title characters, James Robertson Justice, Raymond Massey, Kieron Moore, Jayne Meadows and John Sutton plus a dance by Gwen Verdon and expectations might be raised that the resulting film could be made into something special. But in a biblical subject script, usually a sub-genre prone to illogical motivations and miraculous interventions, everything would ultimately depend on the author's skills. Philip Dunne here has supplied human beings, a rare achievement in biblical films. David is a man in this film, many-sided, not someone doing mythical deeds on paper in the Old Testament. Gregory Peck makes him curious, passionate, self-controlled, self-deprecating and appealing. As Bathsheba, Hayward is scarcely the perfect choice but conveys a good deal of common-sense earthiness and emotional normalcy that helps one see why the King of Israel would risk so much for her. The rest of the cast is stalwart and capable by turns. The familiar storyline provides them little to work with, but author Dunne and the cast do as much as is possible with the human situations. David's youth is told in flashback; how he was chosen by a Prophet of Yahweh to be King of Israel, and earns his way to be second to the king, Saul, by defeating Goliath the Phiiistine in battle when all else are afraid to beard the giant warrior. Thereafter, he finally is driven from the court of King Saul of Israel, becomes a famous warrior, and returns to claim the kingdom and become the instrument of death of Jonathan, the King's son, formerly a friend. His wars are successful-- the film opens in fact with a successful attack scene; but his life is empty since his wife Michal, Jayne Meadows, is Saul's daughter and is cold to him. He turns to Bathsheba, whom he sees from the palace roof bathing naked; later she admits she had hoped he would see her. But she has a husband, Uriah; when she becomes pregnant, it becomes necessary for Uriah to come in from the battlefield and spend time at home; he instead asks David to set him in the forefront of the battle, even after being aroused by Verdon's dance. David agrees. He is killed, a war hero; but this does not solve the infidelity question. Drought comes to Israel, and the king's infidelity is blamed for the phenomenon. At last, David places his hands on the Ark of the Covenant, recently brought to Jerusalem and housed in a temple, which has caused the death of others who accidentally came in contact with it, inviting his god to punish him--and nothing happens...David exits the temple, and finds that rain has come to his parched land. This film is always interesting, varied in its types of scenes and physically beautiful. The director and author make use of the observer principle, and are frankly more successful in humanizing the characters than in almost any film outside the Grecianized- Near Eastern canon, wherein the feat is a bit easier since neither miraculous nor religious themes are made central in such adventures. . Well-remembered for its glowing realization, fine performances and intelligent dialogue, this dramatic effort bears repeated study.

I am quite surprised at the quite low rating for David and Bathsheba. True, it does get rather ponderous in its pace and some scenes go on for too long, but for me actually it is quite an interesting film. The film does look great, the photography is colourful and just lovely, while the sets and costumes are surprisingly evocative. As is Alfred Newman's score, which is also very beautiful and stirring.

I also thought Henry King did a credible job directing the film, and the script is quite literate and thoughtful. The story is interesting on the whole, some scenes as I've said do drag and don't serve as much purpose to the story as much as it would have liked, but the famous fight with Goliath flashback is cleverly staged and the last fifteen minutes moved me. The acting is fine, Gregory Peck oozes with nobility here and I am still trying to get over how handsome he looks. Susan Hayward is both ravishing and sensitive, while Raymond Massey is excellent as the prophet Nathan.

All in all, not a perfect film, but interesting. 8/10 Bethany Cox