ESTHER AND THE KING, a Hollywood-upon-the-Tiber off-the-rack epic from 1960, takes another papyrus leaf from a Biblical story and uses T&A (testament & absolution) to pound home for the zumteenth time something that’s intended to inspire us. This slingshot from 20th Century Fox splashed late in the year, six months after the studio’s The Story Of Ruth, which, while nothing to convert over, was better all around and did six times more business. Both of these earnest commercials for The Judeo-Christian Party Line were trampled at the box office by the actually smart, actually believable, actually fact-based and assuredly epic Spartacus.

Almost 500 years before a philosophical shepherd made a ripple in one fractious nook of the Roman Empire, it was mighty Persia and their demigod rulers who forced whim, will and whip upon everyone within reach, and in the case of all-conquering King Ahasuerus (all-manly Richard Egan) that duty included taking Judean maiden Esther (all-fetching Joan Collins) for his Queen. It could’ve been easier had not Ahasuerus (Ancient Persian for “don’t trust spell-check”) been forced to deal with Vashti (Daniela Rocca), his cheating harlot ex-Queen who manages to get strangled; peace-platitude spouter Mordecai (Denis O’Dea) reminding everyone that some sects have super- long shelf lives; smiling snake Haman (Sergio Fantoni), scheming for power; and “that young Macedonian upstart”, aka Alexander the Great, which throws historical chronology off by 75 years or so.

For a decade, the property had been kicked back and forth between writers, directors and stars before a writers strike early in 1960 played havoc with the studios production schedules and the Fox honchos (Spyros Skoras and Buddy Adler) asked dependable warhorse Raoul Walsh to “make a film very quickly for them, because they had nothing at all, the studios were practically shut. That’s why we made Esther in Italy.” Co-writing the script with Michael Elkins (ex-reporter and ardent Zionist) and Ennio De Concini (Constantine And The Cross, The Colossus Of Rhodes) Walsh produced as well as directed, though there was a good deal of input from Mario Bava, the cinematographer, who got director credit in the Italian-release version.

Even in a feature this lousy our Fairness Doctrine (like the FCC had when we resembled a democracy) seeks out whatever is worthy (they weren’t trying to make a stinker) so we’ll temper the scourging by conceding Bava’s cinematography is fine and there’s a commendable music score from Francesco Lavagnino and Roberto Nicolosi. Sergio Fantoni makes a great bad guy, even when dubbed and stuck with delivering tripe for dialogue. Cleavage gets a lot of screen time, so that must be taken into consideration, as when leering Haman tells lustful Vashti that “The Goddess of Nature has been especially generous to you.”

Ahem, then there’s the script, most of the acting, the dubbing, the costuming, art direction and props, the lame action scenes…

Contractually shoehorned into this after losing Cleopatra to her friend Elizabeth Taylor, Collins, 27, thought it was one of the worst scripts she’d ever read, feeling it would be a bomb: score for Joan, then, as reviews scoffed and the $1,300,000 gross limped in at 116th for the year. Her beauty is apparent but because Esther is ‘pure’ (like theocratic land grabs and massacres) her sex appeal quotient is denied in favor of all the supporting femmes, who writhe lasciviously (the big feast dance number is a hoot) and stride with pride in hopeful shots at bigger roles in better movies. Collins fights the script but it’s a losing battle. That year she took some comfort with the neat heist flick Seven Thieves, but after this and the lame The Road To Hong Kong, her once-promising career sputtered into mostly schlock for two decades before TVs Dynasty put her back in the spotlight.

Rocca’s slut Queen Vashti commands “I’m going to the feast! Prepare me! Hurry! Hurry!”

We normally like the rugged if limited Egan, 39 and fresh off hits A Summer Place and Pollyanna, but he’s wooden and ill-at-ease here. Plus, it’s a bit of a reach to have sympathy for Ahasuerus when you excavate that was the alternate name for an immortal tyrant, better known as Xerxes. Yes, the very same Persian nation-eater who Egan would battle against two years later as Sparta’s King Leonidas in The 300 Spartans. Kids of the era (if they could stay awake during this one) would be as confused as they were about Davy Crockett turning from Fess Parker to John Wayne. You had to be there…

At 73, Walsh was near the finish of a storied career, and his touch was slipping; this was preceded by Band Of Angels (a Civil War dud for Gable), The Sheriff Of Fractured Jaw (no-one could help Jayne Mansfield) and A Private’s Affair (so private no one saw it) and followed by Marines, Let’s Go (so dopey that after JFK saw it he nixed Walsh helming PT-109) and finally A Distant Trumpet (spectacular cavalry action vs. Troy Donahue). Walsh winners from earlier days put these to shame.

Sergio Fantoni, 1930-2020

The costumes look like leftovers, the prop swords like toys, the sets unimpressive, the few action scenes mostly unconvincing and unexciting jostling. But before you throw up your hands (and report me to the reigning Bible-thumping hypocrites) consider the camp value inherent in the script—-“Who is the one who wails like a she-wolf baying at the moon?”    “What court idiot decided to bore me with this sorry spectacle?”    “For if the perfume of the rose is pleasing…no one is going to question who crushed the petals.”   “Do not grieve that you’ve lost the splendor of the golden robe. Nothing can prevail against the King’s mistrust of female ambition. What a squandering of beauty! The fairest from all the provinces and now they will be sent home to milk goats.”  Thusly laments ‘Hegai’, the court eunuch/pimp/flutterer of arms.  My fave: “I remind you again that his assassination has been too long delayed.”

With Rik Battaglia, Renato Baldini, Folco Lulli, Gabriel Tinti, Rosalba Neri, Robert Buchanan. 109 minutes.

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