Movie posters with a holy edge

NEW YORK — In the beginning, there was light. And soon after, it seems, there were movies. And with movies came movie posters — the “heralds” that drew people into movie theaters, particularly during the Golden Age of Hollywood: the 1920s through 1950s. This was a time “when fantasy architecture made its visitors feel as […]

(RNS5-FEB24) The poster for “The Robe” is featured in the “Reel Religion: A Century of the Bible and Film” exhibit at the Museum of Biblical Art in New York. For use with RNS-REEL-RELIGION, transmitted Feb. 24, 2009. Religion News Service photo courtesy MOBIA.

(RNS5-FEB24) The poster for “The Robe” is featured in the “Reel Religion: A Century of the Bible and Film” exhibit at the Museum of Biblical Art in New York. For use with RNS-REEL-RELIGION, transmitted Feb. 24, 2009. Religion News Service photo courtesy MOBIA.

(RNS5-FEB24) The poster for “The Robe” is featured in the “Reel Religion: A Century of the Bible and Film” exhibit at the Museum of Biblical Art in New York. For use with RNS-REEL-RELIGION, transmitted Feb. 24, 2009. Religion News Service photo courtesy MOBIA.


(RNS5-FEB24) The poster for “The Robe” is featured in the “Reel Religion: A Century of the Bible and Film” exhibit at the Museum of Biblical Art in New York. For use with RNS-REEL-RELIGION, transmitted Feb. 24, 2009. Religion News Service photo courtesy MOBIA.

(RNS5-FEB24) The poster for “The Robe” is featured in the “Reel Religion: A Century of the Bible and Film” exhibit at the Museum of Biblical Art in New York. For use with RNS-REEL-RELIGION, transmitted Feb. 24, 2009. Religion News Service photo courtesy MOBIA.

NEW YORK — In the beginning, there was light. And soon after, it seems, there were movies.

And with movies came movie posters — the “heralds” that drew people into movie theaters, particularly during the Golden Age of Hollywood: the 1920s through 1950s. This was a time “when fantasy architecture made its visitors feel as though they were entering into a sacred space,” says the Rev. Michael Morris, a Dominican priest, film scholar and avid movie poster collector.

But the posters — some of them as monumentally designed as the films they were advertising — could be miniature masterpieces in their own right. And, in fact, some were superior to the films showing inside the theaters.

“The creators of some vintage and modern biblical film posters drew on the gravitas of masterpieces of biblical painting and sculpture,” said Paul Tabor, the director of exhibitions for the Museum of Biblical Art (MOBIA) in New York, which is currently exhibiting “Reel Religion: A Century of the Bible and Film,” through May 17.


The exhibit features about 80 posters culled from Morris’ collection and a separate collection of Mary Strauss, co-owner of the historic Fox Theater in St. Louis. It also includes such curiosities as the mauve cape Charlton Heston wore in “Ben-Hur” and the chest plate worn by Yul Brynner in Cecil B. DeMille’s “The Ten Commandments.”

Also featured as part of the exhibit is a 28-page extended essay by Morris, a professor of religion and the arts at the Dominican School of Philosophy & Theology at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, Calif.

In the essay, as well as at a recent lecture at the museum, Morris said most Americans still associate biblical films with the “sword and sandal” era of “Ben-Hur,” (1959) “The Ten Commandments” (1956), and “The Robe” (1953). Biblical stories were treated to grand, elaborate Hollywood treatment, partly because of the advent of wide-screen Cinemascope.

“With the movie `The Robe’, Cinemascope was born and film architecture had more room in which to engulf its audience,” Morris said.

Almost by necessity, the movie posters advertising the films followed suit, he noted.

“Even the posters began to look monumental with the very letters of the title taking on an architectonic profundity as in `Ben-Hur’ and `King of Kings,”‘ Morris said. “No matter what the language, the characters and the letters could be manipulated to reflect the magnificence of the film.”

Still, the exhibit makes clear that movie posters have to be seen as works of art and craftsmanship that can stand on their own.


“Though ultimately disposable, many vintage film posters, especially the lithographs created primarily in the silent-film era, are works of fine art in their own right,” Tabor said.

An early example of fine art is the lithograph poster of the 1923 film adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s play, “Salome,” which depicts the biblical story of the woman who sought John the Baptist’s head after performing the fabled “Dance of the Seven Veils.”

The poster of that film is considered an Art Deco masterpiece and was designed by Natacha Rambova, the wife of screen legend Rudolph Valentino (and the subject of a 1991 book authored by Morris).

While “Salome” was lambasted by Photoplay magazine as “a hothouse orchid of decadent passion” and proved a commercial flop, the genre of biblically themed films has often fared well at the box office.

Indeed, biblical films were among the first films ever made in 1890s, and were often shown in churches as a way to attract congregants. A particular favorite of the time were documentaries of the German Oberammergau Passion plays.

The movie posters advertising the Oberammergau films portrayed the suffering of Jesus — a favorite theme for both biblical epics and movie posters then and now, whether directed by Mel Gibson, Pier Paolo Pasolini or Martin Scorsese.


Like films themselves, movie posters can tell us something of a particular time and place, Morris said.

One of the posters in the MOBIA exhibit, an early 1940s Mexican movie poster of a film depicting Jesus’ life, is notable not only for its striking period design, but its bold, vivid portrayal of a suffering Christ.

That hardly comes as a surprise, Morris said, given the persecution of the Roman Catholic Church in Mexico in the 1930s, a period of history that produced such works as “The Power and the Glory,” author Graham Greene’s classic portrayal of the church under siege.

“The posters use secular vocabulary to sell a religious movie,” Morris said in an interview. “Some of the films are mystical, some are schlock, some are satires, some are mystical. They’re like life. They’re all over the place.”

Donate to Support Independent Journalism!

Donate Now!