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A little rural village Jerusalem 30 AD: Under the rule of Pontius
Pilate, the occupying Roman forces tax dry the land and enslave whoever
does fail to pay up. The zealots want to fight their usurpers, only their
leader, the scholar Joel (John Beal) holds them back, as the few zealots
in his village are to few to resist the entire Roman army, but he has
heard of this carpenter from Nazareth, who is already called King of
the Jews (yes, it's Jesus Christ, in case you wondered), who is
already collecting a multitude of oppressed masses behind him. So Joel
decides to go and look for Jesus to lead the army of Jews against the
Romans and pledge his allegiance. Leaving his village is made all the
easier when his sweetheart Tamar (Marjorie Cooley) is betrothed to, of all
people, his brother, the hothead Zadok (Warren McCollum).
But when Joel meets up with Jesus he doesn't find a king ready to go
into battle but a wanderer preaching to love thy neighbour.
Not having achieved anything, Joel returns to his village, to arrive at
his brother's wedding to Tamar. And while Joel's father, the rabbi
(Maurice Moscovitch), tries to publicly ridicule Jesus, who for some
reason also stops by, but instead has all his arguments backfiring on him,
hothead Zadoc sneaks away from his own wedding to kill Roman centurio
Longinus (Albert Dekker), but ends up at the wrong end of his own sword.
When the other villagers find out that Longinus has killed Zadoc (in self
defense actually), they want to lynch him, only Joel, who has suddenly
understood Jesus' words, sides with Longinus and protects him with his own
life - all the better for the lynch mob, because soon afterwards the Roman
army arrives, and they wouldn't have taken it lightly if one of their own
was killed.
Rather surprisingly, Longinus orders Joel's village to be spared, but
Joel to be arrested ...
Days later, in a jail in Jerusalem: Longinus opens the door to Joel's
cell and sets him free, explaining he has only arrested him to save him
from the anger of his own people. Furthermore he has also sent for Tamar,
who is now again free for him. He just wants to know one thing: Why
did Joel the Jew, his enemy, save his life ?
Because of Jesus, is Joel's answer.
But Jesus was crucified earlier the same day, and it was
Longinus' very own spear that effectively ended his life ...
Only now Longinus realizes the error of his ways, and decides to give
up his life as Roman centurio and help Joel and Tamar spread Jesus' word.
A low budget bible film - though the story that's told is not actually
in the bible - with a very cheesy narration and a rather blunt way to
deliver its message. If you are not into bible films at all, don't even
bother to watch this one.
But if you can endure the Christian propaganda, you might find this
B-movie version of a pseudo bible story, filmed in a few cheap sets
probably left over from other films and on locations where normally
Westerns are shot, rather amusing. But of course it's a far cry from
Irving Pichel's earlier The
Most Dangerous Game in every respect.
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