Whatever religious beliefs John Huston did or did not have, he treated the Scriptures with a great deal of respect. I don't see why an atheist would do a movie like this in the first place. I would think he wouldn't have wanted to touch it. But the beauty and poetry of this film is simply awesome. I would have given it ten stars, but he did take some artistic license with Scripture and he did kind of ham it up in the Noah's Ark sequence. Also, he left out the part where Noah got drunk after the flood and cursed one of his sons because they made fun of his nakedness. Otherwise, this is a beautiful film. It reminded me a little bit of HOW THE WEST WAS WON, in that he chronicled a few generations in this story, and many of the actors had little more than cameo appearances. The Creation scenes were absolutely gorgeous. I read somewhere that he didn't want to use animation drawings for the Creation, because he felt that the world was in a constant state of creation, and he had a crew film some of the wonders of the world at work. The results are stunning. The world really looks fresh and new in this film. You can tell he put a lot of care in making this film.

As a musician, I have to comment on the music in this film. It is as beautiful as the film. Too bad the soundtrack is out of print now. I had the album when I was younger and I played it nearly every chance I got. I never knew until I saw on this site that Ennio Morricone had a hand in writing some of this score (don't know which parts) but was uncredited. Instead, a Japanese composer named Toshiro Mayuzumi did most of this score, a composer I haven't heard of since.

Until PASSION OF THE Christ, this was the last of the big Bible epics and is an underrated masterpiece worth seeing. (THE LAST TEMPTATION OF Christ doesn't count because it took the Scriptures and butchered them.) 9 out of 10.

This is not John Huston's worst movie, not in a million light-years, but it is not his best either. This is a decent if flawed epic, John Huston does do a very good job directing and you can tell a lot of effort went into making this.

The acting was good enough, my favourite was Stephen Boyd, while his screen time is not large, he commands every second of it. Peter O'Toole, George C.Scott and John Huston also do sterling work, on the other hand there are some like Franco Nero for instance who comes across as a little bland.

The film is overlong and is ponderous in pace. Plus there are moments of disjointed writing.

That said, the film does look absolutely stunning and still holds up. The cinematography is very beautiful, and the scenery and costumes are splendid. The score is also excellent.

Overall, it is flawed but I think it is worth the look. 6/10 Bethany Cox

Dino DeLaurentis was a man who thought big and somewhere in the early sixties he got the idea to do the biblical spectacle film of all time. Not just settle for one story mind you, but the whole Bible. Of course what he proposed would have been something along the lines of Erich Von Stroheim's silent film Greed which in the director's cut ran something like nine hours. DeLaurentis was persuaded that maybe just half the book of Genesis might contain enough subject matter for a theatrical film.

But even at that it was too much. But curiously enough according to the Films of John Huston, The Bible was the best grossing John Huston film ever. Mainly because the one section of the film that got good critical response was the section dealing with Noah and the Flood. And playing Noah and directing himself was John Huston.

I'd have to agree with the critics, Huston was a good Noah indeed, in fact in the last of the Planet of the Apes series he kind of reprises his part as the patriarch Noah with simian makeup. I remember back in the day, The Bible got a whole lot of family trade as parents brought the little kids in to see all the animals on the ark.

The rest of the film unfortunately is too long. The people talk just like they did in a DeMille film, but without DeMille's flair for the spectacle.

In fact Dino should have waited for another decade when the mini-series format was accepted on television and tried his original idea on the small screen. For myself, I don't think there's ever been a film about Joshua and his leadership of the Israelites in conquering the land of Canaan. Jericho's walls a-tumbling down, make a great movie scene, especially now with computer graphics.

Maybe one day they'll release the Noah portion as a single film and it might still get good reviews today.