José vendido en Egipto

In the wake of the adoption of the Widescreen process and the consequent increase in popularity of the Biblical subgenre within the realm of the Epic, stories from the Old and New Testament became a much-raided Hollywood commodity during the 1950s and 1960s. It was only a matter of time before the ultra-Catholic Italians got onto the bandwagon and grew another branch into their own in-house brand of the epic that was renamed the peplum.

As would eventually became the custom, veteran Hollywood film-makers – among them Frank Borzage, Raoul Walsh, Jacques Tourneur and Edgar G. Ulmer – were engaged to supervise the production of these cheaper Italian epics and so it is that Irving Rapper – best-known for the schmaltzy but solid Bette Davis vehicles NOW, VOYAGER (1942) and DECEPTION (1946) – became involved with bringing to the big-screen the story of Joseph; subsequently, he would be employed in a similar capacity on PONTIUS PILATE (1962). While the co-director here was one Luciano Ricci – who would later (under the alias of Herbert Wise) be the officially credited director of THE CASTLE OF THE LIVING DEAD (1964) despite the reported intervention of two others! – the actors who came on board Joseph AND HIS BRETHREN were far better known. Chief among them were Robert Morley (ludicrously hamming it up as Potiphar) and genre staple Finlay Currie (as a dignified Jacob), while the younger roles were entrusted to an eclectic bunch: Geoffrey Horne (in the title role), Belinda Lee (as Potiphar’s deceitful wife, she featured in several of these Italian cheapies and would eventually die tragically within a year in a road accident), Arturo Domenici (as Potiphar’s ambitious counsellor), Terence Hill (as Joseph’s younger brother Benjamin) and Dante Di Paolo (as the main schemer among Joseph’s jealous brothers).

One may wonder why I’m talking about everything else but the film and, unfortunately, that’s because it is no great shakes. While the story was good enough to be remade thrice on celluloid – as a 1974 TV movie by Michael Cacoyannis, yet again for TV in 1995 and as a Dreamworks animated feature in 2000 – not to mention revamped as a musical extravaganza on the stage, the version under review is dreary, dull and unmemorable. Small wonder, then that the film has fallen into public domain and is available on various budget DVDs in an English-dubbed, pan-and-scan, washed out print which further serves to alienate the viewer.

The biblical narrative of Joseph in Genesis is a wonderful passage in the Bible, and is worthy of both reading and study. This film had some resemblance of the historical script, and in those areas, it was somewhat satisfactory. However, many details were changed, including a number of very important details. Why do these writers think that they can write a better script than what is in the Word of God? Way too much liberty was taken in departing from the sacred text, mostly ruining what could have been a fine depiction of what actually happened. I was generous and gave it 3 stars.

Surely not the best biblical story put on film, however this American-Italian production is quite good. Definitely better that any film of the same genre that came out of Italy in that decade. Even though leading man Borromel is quite stiff and severe looking, still other performances, namely from Belinda Lee, cover this drawback. Much of the story is as it is found in the Bible, but a little space for love and originality is given. I remember watching this movie on an Italian channel some days before a rival channel broadcasted the latest adaptation of this story, called "Joseph". Though it is by far inferior to the Emmy award winner, still it is enjoyable.

This movie gives insight into life as seen by Joseph. From his father's favorite son. To beaten and left for dead, captured and sold into slavery. But Joseph was a wise man. He deciphered dreams, made wine, saves lives with medical wisdom. Lived life in a dungeon but rose to become second in command in Egypt. This is the story of how you can rise up and prosper if you are kind and intelligent.

So you're watching that old classic Bridge On the River Kwai, and begin to wonder what ever happened to Geoffrey Horne, the young male lead who holds his own against such top talents as Alec Guinness, William Holden, Jack Hawkins and Sessue Hayakawa? One might figure that with a blockbuster like that behind you, any actor ought to be able to move on to major work. Didn't happen in this case, and while Horne has had a long history of small roles in both movies and TV, he only received the lead in one movie that was released to theatres in the U.S., and it's a pretty bad one at that. He's Joseph, the lad whose father gave him a coat of many colors, in this miniscule 'epic' that tried to find a place for itself at a time when Biblical films were huge at the box office - Ben Hur, The Ten Commandments, Barabbas, King of Kings, The Greatest Story Ever Told, etc. etc. Don't expect the kind of sweeping vistas, spectacular action, and attention to period detail here that you do in any of those. An Italian-American co-production, this does benefit from Robert Morley doing his plump/effete bit as a cruel slave holder and the sadly forgotten Belinda Lee (she died young in a car accident) as that man's gorgeous, sexually frustrated wife who throws herself at the slave Joseph. The entire Biblical story is told, dreams and all, but its a paint by numbers, run of the mill job, without so much as decent pacing much less good dialogue. What might have helped immensely is if the brothers had been developed as individuals rather than reduced to a mere mob. Too bad, because here's a story worth telling - and, from the evidence in Kwai, there was an actor worth developing!