Word: fabiola
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...nature rather than by man. In re-creating the terrifying last days of Pompeii, the show had the help of an excellent script-the contemporary letters of Pliny the Younger to the historian Tacitus-and dramatic excerpts from a pair of vintage Italian films. Sins of Pompeii and Fabiola. In somber contrast to the deluge of volcanic fire and dust that buried the city and its inhabitants, the camera strolled down the empty, cobbled streets of present-day Pompeii and glanced up at the peaceful, picturesque cone of Vesuvius...
...Fabiola (Jules Levey; United Artists), based on the 97-year-old novel by Britain's Nicholas Cardinal Wiseman, pictures the ordeals and triumphs of the Christian martyrs in Constantine's Rome. Made in Italy three years ago with French and Italian actors romping toga-clad through elaborate sets populated by 7,000 extras, the movie has been dubbed into English and shrewdly released to steal the thunder of such forthcoming spectacles as MGM's Quo Vadis and 20th Century-Fox's David and Bathsheba...
Unfortunately, Fabiola has little thunder of its own. Though Adapters Marc (The Green Pastures) Connelly and Free Pressburger have lopped away half of the picture's original three-hour footage and reworked the rest, the story is overplotted confusing and lacking in dramatic force Only in the grand-scale scenes of the closing minutes, when the gladiators and lion; are turned loose on the martyrs, does this film develop any real excitement. Up to then, it dawdles turgidly over a tame counterfeit of Roman debauchery, an involved political-religious intrigue and a routine love story that pairs a patrician...
...Fabiola's most nagging fault is its inexpert dubbing. The voices not only fail to jibe with lip movements, but they are so similar at times and so evenly grouped around the microphone that the moviegoer must carefully search the screen to be sure just which character is supposed to be speaking...
...French film with English dialogue dubbed in, "Fabiola" stars Michele Morgan, Michel Simon, and Henri Vidal. Mlle. Morgan has a terrible part and does little to improve on it. She walks sultrily through most of the script and only rarely rises even to the level of hamming...