Word: bathsheba
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Susan Hayward, 32, a pert-nosed, durable redhead who after 29 routine pictures is being molded to super siren parts. Her current picture: David and Bathsheba...
David and Bathsheba (20th Century-Fox), apparently inspired by the phenomenal box-office take ($11 million in its first year) of Samson and Delilah, sends Hollywood back to the Bible for another censor-proof tale of a strong man's weakness for a beautiful woman. Like the Cecil B. DeMille opus, the new epic is a Technicolored potion concocted from equal parts of sex, spectacle and religion. But Producer Darryl F. Zanuck's mixture, neither so rich nor so heady as its predecessor, comes dangerously close to serving as a sleeping potion...
David and Bathsheba takes itself much more seriously than Samson and Delilah. Scripter Philip Dunne has made a literate adaptation of the story from the second book of Samuel. His characterizations of David (Gregory Peck), a national hero grown cynical, lax and unpopular, and Bathsheba (Susan Hayward), a proud, shrewd charmer, are thoughtful and thorough. And Peck's performance carries surprising authority...
Disappointing as spectacle, David and Bathsheba is no more successful in its frank tale of adultery. Even the most sensational episodes are weighted down with portentous airs and long-winded prattle, and while the picture gathers an ever loftier mood of religiosity, David and Bathsheba seem to spend nearly as much time suffering and repenting their sins as committing them...
Most of the songs Shoshana sings are the kind that Jewish men & women have sung since the days of David and Bathsheba: prayers, laments, love songs, or songs that tell a story, such as The Magic Carpet-an account of the exodus of modern Yemenite Jews from their home on the Arabian peninsula. Few in the audience can understand the Hebrew words, but Shoshana's gestures, mobile face and throbbing voice make them exciting listening anyway...