Many films have been made on Mary Magdalene, and they all happen to be interesting, although they are all just speculations. No one really knows anything about her, the accounts of her in the gospels are confused, and the result of her undeniable but utterly debatable role in the life of Jesus has turned her into an inexhaustible legend, some even suggesting she was Jesus' wife and had a child with him, while it is also absolutely undeniable that she was a woman of doubtful reputation. One of the best films speculating in her topsy-turvy life was "The Cross and the Sword" with Yvonne de Carlo, and this film must have been inspired partly by that one, since that one already suggested she was involved with the Romans. Here she has two Roman lovers, and the second is no one less than Vitellius, who ended up a Roman emperor after the chaos that followed on Nero's death. All the characters in the film are astoundingly convincing, and especially Vitellius makes a very realistic impression - as an emperor he was a realist. Every character is brilliantly represented by actors doing more than well, among whom some should be especially noted, like the buffoon Herod Antipas, here a ridiculous caricature entirely in the claws of his passionate wife Olympias, perhaps the best actress of the film, and John the Baptist is extremely palpable as a character, totally different from Charlton Heston and Robert Ryan. Salome here is also a highlight with her dance of the veils, something totally different from the performance of Rita Hayworth in the same fix, while Maria Grazia Cucinetta as Mary makes a complex and very female portrait, probably the best Mary Magdalene ever, and at least the most convincing. Even Jesus is good and convincing, always an impossibly difficult role to make convincing, but here he succeeds as well as Robert Powell. The story above all is very well written with consistently pertinent dialog, the realism is without flaws, and the music, which flows soothingly throughout the film adds to the good impression. This is a film to love for its beauty, its humanity, its very individualistic characters and its general architecture - this must be one of the best Biblical films, the more impressive for being just conjecture, but excellently well carried through.
