Product Description

Paul Newman - in his screen debut - plays a 1st century Greek sculptor who is sold into slavery. He escapes harm when his talent is discovered and he is commissioned to create a replica of the chalice Jesus drank from at the Last Supper.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #16627 in DVD
• Brand: WARNER HOME VIDEO
• Released on: 2009-02-17
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 2.55:1
• Formats: Color, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, French
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 142 minutes

Features

• Paul Newman - in his screen debut - plays a 1st century Greek sculptor who is sold into slavery. He escapes harm when his talent is discovered and he is commissioned to create a replica of the chalice Jesus drank from at the Last Supper.Running Time: 142 min. Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: NR Age: 883929050383 UPC: 883929050383 Manufacturer No: 1000045

Amazon.com
Different movies are legendary for different reasons, and The Silver Chalice has its special place in film history: it's the picture Paul Newman tried to laugh off throughout his career. In his film debut, Newman plays a young artist raised in comfort but then bonded into slavery in the Roman Empire, where he gets a shot at creating a chalice for a sacred cup used by Jesus (crucified 20 years earlier). The strange cast includes Virginia Mayo as an exotic vixen, Pier Angeli as Newman's sweet, sincere Christian adorer, Joseph Wiseman as an anti-Christian plotter, and best of all Jack Palance, as a magician called upon to become the new Jesus. (For a climactic scene Palance dresses in a caped, skintight red costume, looking for all the world like the Riddler in a different color palate.) If this doesn't begin to convey the film's craziness, consider that the great art director Boris Leven opted for sets that are mostly stylized in the stark, spare manner of a 1950s Roadrunner-Coyote cartoon, a wild design that makes the movie look more like a stage opera than a lived-in film. Newman has a deer-in-the-headlights expression that suggests he knows he's made a terrible mistake, but there's nothing to do but say the dialogue anyway. In the 1960s, Newman took out newspaper ads urging people not to watch The Silver Chalice when it was broadcast on TV, and the film was something of a punch line for him thereafter. Little did he suspect how entertaining the film is for "bad movie night," or that it inspires hope for anybody whose career begins in a less-than-stellar way. --Robert Horton

Customer Reviews

A bizarre religious epic!
Based on a best-seller by Thomas B. Costain, and directed by Victor Saville, "The Silver Chalice" was one of the studio's early CinemaScope films, and was really a variation on Fox's "The Robe," the first CinemaScope movie that had been a huge success in 1953... The action follows a group of Christians who are dedicated to preserving Christ's Holy Cup twenty years after the Last Supper...

Since Newman had the lead as a young Greek silversmith, sold into slavery, then chosen by the Christians to design a chalice for the Cup, becomes involved in battles and orgies, and must decide between the pagan world represented by a courtesan (Virginia Mayo) and the Christian world represented by his young, innocent wife (Pier Angeli). There is also a mad pagan magician (Jack Palance), who wants to destroy the chalice and establish his own religion, replacing Christ's miracles with black magic...

Newman was ideally cast as a Greek, because of his classic features, but he makes his film debut at particularly unfortunate time... 1954 was the year of "The Wild One" and "On the Waterfront," and Brando was at the height of his popularity...

A Highly Underrated Epic Film
The Silver Chalice, finally available on DVD in a beautiful widescreen transfer, is a unique example of the epic genre. Hoping to achieve something different from the type of epics being made in Hollywood at the time, Warner Bros. hired Art Director Boris Leven and Production Designer Rolf Gerard (of the Metropolitan Opera) to create a very stylized concept of the ancient world. Thanks mainly to Paul Newman's derisive comments about this movie, it's reputation has suffered over the years. The Silver Chalice needs to be reevaluated as, in addition to the stunning visuals, it also boasts an involving plot, some fine performances, and a wonderful Academy Award nominated score by Franz Waxman.

MINE OWN favorite clinker
That 'The Silver Chalice' is finally issued is choice news for this correspondent.

For some reason, this Warner Bros pic played in my home town months before 'The Robe' - slightly recollect that the Fox exhibitors were not quite ready with a CinemaScope screen. At any rate, the big send up for 'The Silver Chalice' entailed it being promoted as our first wide-screen experience. Little did anyone know Paul Newman from Method or Brando. Expectations regarding Virgina Mayo's performances were slight - considering her previous undemanding costumers ('Captain Horatio Hornblower;' Westerns; etc.), while Jack Palance barely was an up-and-coming young performer (cannot recall if 'The Big Knife' had come out yet).

Barely in third grade, I was blown away with the unconventional storyline for a tale set in Biblical times and the sort-of Art-Deco production values. Have not seen it since (but am all over my kids to treating me a copy for this Christmas) yet for some reason recall most of it.

Pier Angeli comes to mind, first. Saw several other performances of hers but, relatively small as her part is, could and still can appreciate James Dean's real-life endearment to her. The casting of Natalie Wood at perhaps age 12 was welcome - a favorite since 'Miracle on 34th Street' - and do believe that Russ Tamblyn was not entirely an unknown at the time. What made my head spin was for moviemakers to expect us to suspend disbelief and accept that these two characters as adults would become Mayo and Newman, respectively. It called for considerable adjustment: as if reels from two different movies had been switched.

The campy performance from Jack Palance as this flaring nostrils Jesus-wannabe cannot be faulted: it must be seen to be believed. Take his Simon seriously and you will deprive yourself of a pleasure. Think Robert Newton as Long John Silver in 'Treasure Island' (1950); Charles Laughton in 'Spartacus' or in 'Advise and Consent'; Christopher Plummer as Atahualpa in 'The Royal Hunt of the Sun' ("They eeet Him") or as Commodus in 'The Fall of the Roman Empire"; or choice Olivier ("Is it safe?"); or a controlled Gary Oldman and Christopher Walken - and you will come close.

Lorne Greene's straighforward take on his character skewers the whole thing, actually.

Will see it repeatedly, am sure.