L'esclave du pharaon

The first Italian movie by Irving Rapper.

The screenplay is rather faithful to Genesis ,which is much to the credit of the movie.Only Joseph and Benjamin are true brothers ,both Rachel's children, whereas the others share the same father with other mothers .

All that you learn in Sunday school is included: the brothers ' jealousy (which was justified,the Holy Writ tells us so -the robe-)Joseph's dream in which his brothers bow to him ,his interpretation of dreams which made him pharaoh's adviser ,and the coming of his family in Egypt.

Robert Morley is the stand out of a rather faceless cast:his tongue in chick playing works wonders in the scene of the slaves market .Putiphar and his wife are given more importance than in the Good Book .The hunting (in the jungle,with black warriors) becomes ridiculous.The opening of the floodgates so that the enemy gets drowned is a (very) poor man's "ten commandments" .The little arithmetic problem of the fifteen sheep is probably not a good way to introduce Joseph (generally,this little riddle concerns camels).

That said,this is an entertaining flick,in which you will not feel God's inspiration,and emotion is terribly lacking when Joseph meets again his bros ,but it is certainly not worse than the other Italian Peplums of the era.