The Big Fisherman (1959)
If you look the plot synopsis up online, you’ll learn The Big Fisherman is a biopic of Peter the disciple, starring Howard Keel. If you watch the movie, you’ll be very bored for the first forty-five minutes; it takes that long for Howard to show up on the screen! The entire movie is two and a half hours long, and the vast majority of it has nothing to do with Peter or Jesus or John.
Susan Kohner stars as Fara, who, since learning of her true parentage, is going through an identity crisis. She has men interested in her, both for honorable and dishonorable intentions, but until she seeks revenge on Herbert Lom and Martha Hyer, she doesn’t feel complete. She dresses as a boy to sneak around undetected, but everyone she meets sees through her disguise instantly, including Howard Keel. At the time, he’s just a fisherman, but soon he and Susan listen to the Sermon on the Mount and decide to follow the teachings of Jesus.
If someone ever decides to torture you and forces you to watch this movie—because there really isn’t any other reason why you’d sit through it—you’ll marvel at the differences between it and Ben-Hur, another biblical movie from 1959. It’s almost impossible to believe they were made at the same time. The Big Fisherman is of such inferior quality, from the costumes to the set design, wigs, script, story, acting, directing, and music. The only similarity is the choice to never show Jesus’s face; in The Big Fisherman, he does speak frequently, which was a poor choice. Thomas Browne Henry’s voice sounds similar to Raymond Massey, not at all how anyone would imagine Jesus sounding.
You could feel sorry for Howard Keel that he had to lend his name to such a terrible movie, after headlining so many wonderful musicals earlier in the decade. Or, you could just do him a favor and forget he was ever in it, and then watch Seven Brides for Seven Brothers for the tenth time.
Want to watch it? Click here to watch it on YouTube. And thanks "BigFishermanBV" for posting!
More Howard Keel movies here!
Susan Kohner stars as Fara, who, since learning of her true parentage, is going through an identity crisis. She has men interested in her, both for honorable and dishonorable intentions, but until she seeks revenge on Herbert Lom and Martha Hyer, she doesn’t feel complete. She dresses as a boy to sneak around undetected, but everyone she meets sees through her disguise instantly, including Howard Keel. At the time, he’s just a fisherman, but soon he and Susan listen to the Sermon on the Mount and decide to follow the teachings of Jesus.
If someone ever decides to torture you and forces you to watch this movie—because there really isn’t any other reason why you’d sit through it—you’ll marvel at the differences between it and Ben-Hur, another biblical movie from 1959. It’s almost impossible to believe they were made at the same time. The Big Fisherman is of such inferior quality, from the costumes to the set design, wigs, script, story, acting, directing, and music. The only similarity is the choice to never show Jesus’s face; in The Big Fisherman, he does speak frequently, which was a poor choice. Thomas Browne Henry’s voice sounds similar to Raymond Massey, not at all how anyone would imagine Jesus sounding.
You could feel sorry for Howard Keel that he had to lend his name to such a terrible movie, after headlining so many wonderful musicals earlier in the decade. Or, you could just do him a favor and forget he was ever in it, and then watch Seven Brides for Seven Brothers for the tenth time.
Want to watch it? Click here to watch it on YouTube. And thanks "BigFishermanBV" for posting!
More Howard Keel movies here!