Ted Neely is JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR (1973) in a filmed adaptation of the Broadway show (which began as a cast album because nobody wanted to produce a rock opera about Jesus). Unlike the filmed stage version I saw a few years ago, this one is set in a desert somewhere and uses an odd mix of robes and contemporary outfits and machines.
The Sanhedrin’s hats look like the tops of chess pieces. Judas (Carl Anderson) goes running from Roman tanks at one point. Pilate’s guards in their tank tops and hard hats look like they’re auditioning for the Village People.
Don’t get me wrong, odd as it was, this worked for me. I love the Tim Rice score and Christian though I am I’ve never been troubled by unconventional approaches to the Bible. It works better as a stage play but that’s true of many stage shows. “He’s just another scripture-quoting hack from Gallilee/The difference is they call him king and that’s what worries me.”
SPIDERS (1919) is Fritz Lang’s earliest surviving film and comes off like a dry run for greater later films. The protagonist is a wealthy yachtsmen who finds himself pitted against a criminal conspiracy called the Spiders. In Part One, he races them to a lost Inca city for a priceless treasure; in Part Two the Spiders plan to pass a kidnapped beauty off as a princess and use her to stage a takeover of Asia. Watchable but Lang would do much better in later works. “He’s discovered our greatest secret — the diamond ship.”
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