The Story of Ruth (1960)

Don't listen to the negative reviews

There are better movies of two hours length. I loved the actress'performance.

The acting in this movie is really good.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

A Samuel G. Engel Production. Copyright 1960 by 20th Century-Fox Film Corp. New York opening simultaneously at the Paramount and the Normandie: 17 June 1960. U.S. release: June 1960. U.K. release: 24 July 1960. Australian release: 3 November 1960. 11,836 feet. 132 minutes.SYNOPSIS: In the ancient land of Moab, a young girl named Ruth is trained to be a high priestess to the stone god who demands the sacrifice of innocent children. But when she meets Mahlon, a young Judean goldsmith, and learns of his faith in a merciful god of spirit, she begins to doubt her own beliefs and eventually flees from the Moab altar during a sacrificial ceremony. Mahlon is blamed for her heresies and sentenced to slave labor in the great stone quarries. Though Ruth arranges for his escape, he is mortally wounded before they can reach safety. Before he dies, however, he takes Ruth as his wife and she vows to remain always with his mother, Naomi. The two women cross the River Jordan to Naomi's former home where Ruth meets two of her late husband's kinsmen, Tob and Boaz, both of whom long to marry her. But, because of Judean law, Ruth is obliged to wed Tob, her dead husband's next of kin. On their wedding day, however, Ruth speaks her heart and publicly declares her love for Boaz. Tob relinquishes his claim and Ruth is free to marry Boaz. As they wed, the prophet Jehoam proclaims that Ruth's future grandson will be the father of David, the King. NOTES: First of only two movies and four TV appearances for the actress billed here as Elana Eden. Negative cost: $5 million. VIEWERS' GUIDE: Strictly for adults with the patience of Job.COMMENT: There have always been writers like Bernard Shaw and Eric Linklater who thought it smart to turn historical and bible stories on their heads. Take the tale of Samson, for instance. Instead of portraying him as a strong man, make him a puny weakling. Instead of a patriotic Jew, turn him into a treacherous Philistine. This isn't just clever character metamorphosis, it's also a means of fitting into your story those incidents that seem out of place or inconsistent or otherwise difficult to explain. For example Samson's vicious actions like killing thirty men to strip them of their clothes, or torturing foxes, or burning down grain fields, vineyards and olive orchards. But there seems little excuse for meddling with the story of Ruth. It's not only one of the most beautiful books in the bible, it's also one of the shortest. A simple story of a gentile girl's faith and fortitude, of her love, trust and obedience. Now what does Hollywood do with this inspiring little history? It turns the whole tale upside down by casting a Jewish girl as the foreigner, and a whole tribe of gentiles as the Jews. It makes the innocent young heroine a trainee high priestess of the hideous idol that feasts on the blood of children. Skipping over equally ridiculous but less abominable alterations, it then works up a love interest between the heroine and "Tob", an interest that never existed on either side. In place of a simple, direct, warm love story, we get a stupid triangle situation.Okay, let's not be too critical. Let's just look at the movie as pure fantasy. Yet even in this realm the movie fails to impress. The script moves too slowly, the acting is generally awkward, the direction often clumsy and flat-footed.

Quite an entertaining and lavish spectacle, but certainly far from historical. The screenwriters did get most of the names correct along with a very few other details and quite surprisingly, even used the personal name of God, Jehovah. Otherwise, there has been so much license taken that to someone who is more than just vaguely familiar with the Bible version of the story, it will be barely recognizable as having been inspired by the Biblical tale.

There's no question that THE STORY OF RUTH would have been a lot more different if it emerged as a Cecil B. DeMille production at the hight of DeMiller's spectacular career at Paramount. I'm sure he would have made certain that the writers expanded on the story to bring as much spectacle and battle scenes as possible in order to bring it up to his usual "sand and sandals" requirements.But Henry Koster has taken a simple story, retained the simplistic values of the plot and made it a moving story of a young woman from a pagan culture who gradually amends her sinful ways and comes to worship only one invisible God. Koster has had wonderful success with his two very rugged looking male stars--TOM TRYON (whose role occupies the first half of the lengthy film, as a Hebrew) and STUART WHITMAN as the man Ruth comes to love. JEFF MORROW is also stalwart and appealing as the man who tries to win her love but fails miserably.Alas, we now come to the real drawback of the film--ELANA EDEN, the unknown actress who plays the all important title role--Ruth, and her acting is, to put it kindly, "limited". In fact, it is only one notch above the kind of grade school emoting we had from Maria Montez during the height of her adventures with Jon Hall and Sabu. Furthermore, while undeniably beautiful in an exotic way, her accent makes much of her dialog in need of the caption feature. Her wooden performance is perhaps the reason for her very brief screen career in what should have been a star-making role.Surprisingly, despite this main drawback, THE STORY OF RUTH has an intelligent script, sensible direction and a warm performance by PEGGY WOOD as Ruth's mother-in-law, Naomi. Miss Wood makes up for the lack of animation in Elana Eden's role.Summing up: Handsomely produced, it's an interesting tale told smoothly without a lot of pomp and circumstance that usually accompanies these sort of Biblical tales. And Franz Waxman's music is stirring.

At the age of 14, I idly turned on the TV in the afternoon and saw this movie just beginning. I felt drawn to see it as I was brought up on Bible stories and knew the story of Ruth pretty well. I was intrigued to see how it would be dramatised.I was fascinated at the movie's expansion of the Book of Ruth's simple account of Ruth's Moabite beginnings, the evil of this pagan civilization which sacrificed its own children to Moloch. This part of the movie is in fact well authenticated by other parts of Scripture.I was impressed by the beauty of the actress playing Ruth, and by her portrayal of the beauty of Ruth's character. I was immediately aware that some license was taken with the beginnings of the relationship between Ruth and Boaz. In the Biblical version he was certainly never hostile to her! However as the love story progressed it had exactly the character of the loving kindness of the kinsman redeemer exemplified in the Biblical Boaz.So much did this quality of deep love based on respect and loving kindness which cares for and wants to look after the beloved impress me that it actually became a standard against all future love stories, both fictional and real, were to be measured by me. For quite a number of years it was almost an unconscious influence, but in my mid 20's when I started seriously considering marriage,it surfaced and became a requirement for me in the man I would marry, and in the love we would have for each other. Somehow this love of Ruth and Boaz seemed much more REAL than almost all the romances I would see in movies or read about.In fact the whole story of Ruth became a pattern for my life, after I returned to faith and sought a life in which God would be my Guide.So much so that I now live in Israel, not far from where Ruth came to live with Naomi . I did find my "Boaz", who had been in some ways so clearly exemplified for me in "The Story of Ruth". I still vividly remember the movie and am grateful that , even though it took some small "liberties" with the Biblical story, it was true to the spirit of the Book of Ruth!