The Robe

Much touted on release as the first film made in CinemaScope (though it was also shot in Academy ratio, which is how it is seen on TV), The Robe has now receded into that lost genre, the religious epic. An uncomfortable Burton plays a Roman centurion whose love of a slave girl leads him to a more sympathetic view of the man his forces are about to crucify. Turgid direction, probably not helped by a necessarily cautious approach to framing, is married to creaky dialogue and stiff performances to render this of purely historical interest.