The Bible: In the Beginning... (1966)

I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

As hilarious as the book!I wonder why religious people doesn't believe in Harry Potter stories or J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord Of The Rings stories!!! these stories are way much stronger, logical and ethical than this ancient hilarious story.We don't need religion for have a better life, just take a look in to our current world, more religion=more corruption, more poverty, more stupidity, more disaster, more lie, more uneducated people... just negativity!And about professional things, Acting was just kinda OK for that era, cinematography was great (picture quality), sound works was very good, score was very good, directing was kinda good with lots of errors...Nearly 3 hours... what a waste of time, but I just laughed some esp. in the moments when GOD was explaining how he created this world in 7 days and BLAH BLAH BLAH, penguins in the Ark! oh I don't wanna waste your time there is millions of non-senses in all the religious books.I believe in Science and myself and the ethics, actually I'm Atheist (Vegan & Straight Edge) and I can admit religious people aren't ethical at all just hypocrisy and non-sense...Live peacefully!

John Houston's three hour epic about the book of Genesis in the Old Testament was to be the start of a series of movies covering the so- called "Good Book" but only covered the first 3/4 of that first part of the bible. Expensively made, it failed to earn back its cost and other entries were canceled. It is a pity because Huston gives a valiant effort to tell the story of creation according to the bible and the first thousand years afterwords.Huston narrates, does the voice of God and even plays Noah. Opulent photography and an excellent musical score add to the multi-part story which covers Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, who begat whom, the great flood and ultimately the creation of the Hebrew nation with Abraham's story.The story of creation is very touching and Adam's introduction to Eve is profound. Curious Eve didn't quite know her apples, and this leads to their banishment from paradise. Jealousy turns brother against brother, Noah deals with human ridicule and the unpredictability of nature in a humorous sequence surrounding a natural disaster. Then there is the story of Abraham, lead by an excellent George C. Scott with Ava Gardner as his barren wife. The will of God makes the story almost tragic as Abraham must risk heartbreak to please the Lord. If there is one continuous theme, that is the lesson that mankind is not to understand the motives of our creator and to try and make it as good as we can with the gifts he has handed over to us.The lessons here are told without finger wagging morality lessons so the audience can watch this without feeling like they have been admonished or judged. The special effects ate outstanding, especially in the flood and Tower of Babel sequences which are just as good and less headache inducing as today's overwrought films.As for the Sodom and Gomorrah sequence, as this came out as the production code was changing, I found it to show a city of perversion that deserved at least a good cleansing, if not total annihilation. There are all sorts of sexual innuendos presented, including homosexuality and bestiality. I have never seen a gay community as perverse as this one, and the confrontation with the angels is definitely an implication of rape, not consensual relations. I can only guess that the lack of morality in these wicked cities had less to do with the types of sex going on rather than the fact that it was without any sense of moral decency behind it and the lawlessness needed to be dealt with. Audiences will see things in the way their own mind perceived it to be, so this sequence and biblical story will always create controversy. For the most part, this film is extremely well acted and sincere with Huston and Scott particularly excellent. The episodic structure makes this seem a lot shorter than it actually is. For religious people, this may not be a proper replacement for its source material, but it is certainly an excellent visual aid.

The Bible: In the Beginning is a religious epic film recounting the first 22 chapters of the Book of Genesis from Creation through Noah's Ark through Abraham's near-sacrifice of son Isaac.The ensemble cast includes Stephen Boyd,Ava Gardner,Richard Harris,John Huston,Peter O'Toole,Michael Parks and George C. Scott.The 174-minute movie has consists of four main sections: Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah's Ark, and the story of Abraham. There are also a pair of shorter sections, one recounting the building of the Tower of Babel, and the other the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. The sections vary greatly in tone.The story of Abraham is somber and reverential, while that of Noah repeatedly focuses on his love of all animals. The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and the Tower of Babel could be called precursors to special effects spectaculars, although there are no real effects in the Tower of Babel sequence, and the special effects in the Sodom and Gomorrah sequence do not appear until the cities are actually destroyed.The major triumph of this film is that despite the insanity of the attempt and the grandiosity of the project, the technology doesn't dominate the material.Also,the greatest stories of the Old Testament are brought to the screen with astounding scope and power that will provide the viewer with genuine awe.

This film was released in September of 1966, which placed it at the close of a long tradition of Hollywood Biblical epics. I was around ten years old and had a vinyl LP of its great musical score which I played over and over before I finally saw the movie on the big screen of a theater. Our family was not particularly religious, but this film was one of those that had a profound influence on me and made me interested in knowing more about the Bible.Looking at it today, I see more depth. The opening footage from all over the world of the days of the Creation is still breathtaking. As a child I felt uncomfortable with the partially nude scenes of Adam and Eve, and even now I believe nudity needs to be implied. Otherwise my mind stops focusing on the story and thinks "I just saw a naked actor!". Also, a theory of some Bible commentators is that animals are clothed with feathers or fur, and Adam and Eve were clothed with a glow of light emanating from within them. When they sinned that glow disappeared and they were then totally naked before they hit on the idea of fig leaves. (This interpretation would not likely have been known to John Huston). Beyond that, the film rolls on quite nicely through the first twenty-two chapters of Genesis. The cinematography is rich and beautiful. I do think a few too many scenes were interpreted as desert settings, since many of the Bible lands were lush and only outskirted by desert as a result of the climatology of the region being somewhat different more than 4,000 years ago (though of course that's controversial). Either way the storyline still follows the episodes of salvation history. One reviewer said it looks like they just kept shooting until they ran out of film and decided to call it quits. To me it was essential they kept going until they climaxed the film with the sacrifice of Isaac, which pointed forward to the day when God would inaugurate a new creation. Thus there is a great arc of theme in the epic from "In the Beginning" to "The New Beginning".Overall the movie looks like a live-action version of Sunday School art. By that I mean most of the scenes are like pictures I've seen in religious artworks. For example, Adam and Eve are portrayed by clean-shaven white people. Cain bashes Abel over the head instead of slitting his throat (like the sacrifices he'd watched - see I John 3:12 in the original Jerusalem Bible [1966], not the New Jerusalem Bible [1985]). This Tower of Babel somewhat rightly resembles a Sumerian ziggurat, yet more resembles Renaissance paintings of it. Modern researchers have discovered that Noah could have been a king, and the ark was actually a huge flat barge shaped like a giant shoebox to ride the tidal waves of the Flood. The movie pictures things like I've seen them all my life: a peasant Noah, and a rounded boat with a house on top (and that shape would capsize in no time). The only thing they didn't have was a giraffe sticking out of the window.Nevertheless, you may enjoy these traditional depictions. I'm just preferring literal Biblical research combined with the look of what has been discovered in archaeology. Yet, for me the overall effect of this film is still profound and quite moving. It's been said that George C. Scott's portrayal of Abraham was the low point of the movie, but I thought his crusty performance was inspiring! (I was also thankful they didn't picture Abraham like Santa Claus). For the most part, watching this film was an enjoyable and uplifting experience. Any Biblical movie should give us a taste of what things were like, and then we should always go back and read the Book. There we will find the authentic atmosphere of the actual words. Still, one line the scriptwriters put in the mouth of Abraham is not found in the Bible, yet it does reflect what the Bible says of him. It has helped me with my faith. It is the line where Abraham asks, "Shall the Lord speak, and Abraham not believe?"