People are voting emotionally.

One of my all time favorites.

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

For me, the only really memorable part of this film was that it was the first one in Cinemascope. When I saw it at the local theater as a boy, I was blown away by the colors and the scope. At the time I didn't really get it. Having seen it as an adult, I found the film absolutely overbearing. We have subplot after subplot. The whole business of the Robe is an entire creation by Lloyd C. Douglas. That the Romans could care less about this artifact which appears nowhere in any scripture that I know of is quite hard to swallow. Then we have all the subplots, the romances, the friendships and alliances, and the jealousy. Yes a really good film would have these, but at times I think the film was a showpiece to show off the current technology and an array of high priced actors. It's not awful. It's just a big investment to watch.

When the filmmakers were making "The Robe", they knew that they'd also be making the sequel "Demetrius and the Gladiators" and filmed them one after the other with no stoppage in between. Now you'd expect that as usual, the first film would be much better than the next, but this is an odd case where this is NOT so. While I really liked "Demetrius and the Gladiators" when I saw it recently, I was very disappointed by "The Robe". And, yes, I watched the films in reverse order! The film is set near the time of Jesus' death and is told from the point of view of a Roman official, Marcellus Gallio (Richard Burton). He and his slave, Demetrius (Victor Mature) are sent to Judea and his is there at the crucifixion. In fact, as the Roman soldiers are casting dice for Jesus' clothes, Marcellus wins the robe. However, little does he know that this robe seems to have magical properties (huh?!) and through this robe, Marcellus comes to become a Christian--making it among the strangest conversion experiences in Hollywood history. However, the insane Emperor, Caligula (Jay Robinson) is not at all pleased, as he hates Christians and takes great sport in killing them. What's to become of Marcellus and his sweetie, Diana (Jean Simmons) once their conversions come to the attention of the nutty 'ol Emperor? Of all of Richard Burton's films, according to IMDb he was least proud of this one because of his wooden performance. While I would agree that it was generally wooden, when it wasn't so flat it was hilariously over-acted. I particularly laughed when Marcellus went mad--and Burton did it in a way highly reminiscent of William Shatner in "Impulse"--and this is NOT meant as a compliment for either of them.Overall, I'd say that the film is, at best, a time-passer. It has lovely sets and nice costumes but it also features some bad acting and a dubious message about Christianity. My advice is so see the sequel--it's something "The Robe" isn't--entertaining. A little bit more subtlety sure would have helped this film, as would an infusion of life and fun. As a result, the film just drags and drags to its conclusion.

Obviously Easter must be approaching for "The Robe" to appear on TV again, although being an atheist myself, faith and devotion won't affect my opinion of the film. It's certainly a grand spectacle, with monumental sets, large crowd scenes and faithful costumery, all helping to compensate for the more than occasional American accent which confuses the geography somewhat.I don't want to judge the movie too harshly but the story is perhaps just too fantastical to really take off. I've heard of faith moving mountains, but just couldn't believe it could affect hard-boiled Roman Tribune Marcellus (Richard Burton) the way it does here. Looking young and tousle-haired, the great man struggles to convincingly convey emotion throughout and to that end lies down with the similarly challenged Victor Mature as his Greek slave Demetrius. There are better performances from Jay Campbell as the deranged Caligula and Charlton Heston lookalike Michael Rennie as Peter but an acting showcase it isn't.A few of the scenes did resonate with me, however, especially the cleverly rendered confession by Judas Iscariot and also where Marcellus has his nightmare about Jesus being nailed to the cross, but too much of the rest is mere platitudinal talk, even as the director still throws us a love story between Burton and Jean Simmons and even a sword fight between Burton and a feisty Roman centurion to spice matters up.The final shot of the doomed lovers marching into the kingdom of heaven after they've publicly defied Emperor Caligula's will is however, pure corn (cue heavenly host of "Hallelujahs"), re-affirming my conclusion that the film, well intentioned as it is, is too sentimental and unbelievable for its own good.

This is my favorite score of Alfred Newman.I find it very haunting and moving and the song of Miriam is very plaintive and beautiful in its simple melody and accompaniment. The love theme of Diana is also very memorable and romantic. I have a soundtrack on CD of this score but the sound quality is very bad, it sounds like they used a mono track as the source for the CD and many tracks that are in the film were not included...I suspect the original LP release did not include them because they would not fit. Is there a better version out there?I am updating my review: The Varese Saraband recording that was issued several years ago on 2 CDs is the most complete version and has great sound and many restored tracks or new tracks that were not previously released. The company only released a limited number of this set, so it is a collector's item by now.Also, I have discovered I think the reason that Mr. Newman's score did not receive an Oscar nomination. There are at least 2 sections from the The Robe (the music of the rescue of Demetrius, and the final Hallejuah chorus) were used previously (albeit in different scoring, but the same themes none the less) in Mr. Newman's score for the 1939 film The Hunchback of Notre Dame for which Mr. Newman received an Oscar nomination then. The Academy's music branch rules would have been very strict at that time in 1953, for eligibility rules for the "Original" score category, thus the score for The Robe was ruled ineligible, since he re-used some music from the 1939 in The Robe.