Wholly Moses!

I really liked this movie! It's a light satirical comedy. It doesn't try to be academy award material with a heavy story, overpowering special effects, or raw suspense, that seem to be the requirement to impress critics today. This movie achieves its goal very well; a couple of hours of zany humor. The comedic acting is very good, with a notable scene by Richard Pryor as Pharaoh. I really enjoyed Dudley Moore, Laraine Newman, and James Coco in this movie. There are also several funny celebrity cameos. The directing, film editing, camera work, and soundtrack were also very good. The humor has occasional adult content. If you want a break from heavy Hollywood blockbusters, and just want to enjoy an afternoon of chuckles and light humor, I recommend this movie.

This was a cute movie. That's about all I really can say for the movie itself. It was witty without being clever. It was amusing without being downright funny. It was neither cutting edge nor creatively inspired (George Burns starred in Oh, God! in 1977). But after nearly thirty years of being preached at (The Ten Commandments by Cecil B. DeMille in 1956, and on and on), it was nice to be able to sit back and laugh about something most people get totally uptight over.

From this release in 1980, we received Mel Brooks's, "History of the World, Part One." Now I'm not saying that Brooks copied this, or ripped it off. It is obvious that he did not do either of those. These are two totally different movies about different issues.

Wholly Moses is about Moses's "brother," Hershel (an invention) and is set during Biblical times. History of the World Pt1 is just that: a very witty take on the ancient history of the world. While sometimes they do cross paths, they never run completely parallel.

While I absolutely LOVE HotW1, I still enjoy watching Hershel dork his way through life.

If you enjoyed History of the World, you may enjoy this one.

It rates a 4.8/10 from...

the Fiend :.

This gets such a bad rap, but it is actually an interesting and amusing flick. With a cast including Dudley Moore, Richard Pryor, Madeline Kahn, and Dom Delouise, it has ample star power to get your viewing eyes and ears through with minimal disappointment. It may not be extremely well acted or directed, but the obvious improvisation acting is superb and carries the film. This movie does something rare to stay afloat, it never takes itself too seriously, even as comedies go. Perhaps not a great, but definitely a good flick, watch it once, you'll be glad you did. It's Dudley Moore and Richard Pryor for chrissake!! How could it be as bad as this site says it is??? It can't, and it is not, check it out.

Wholly Moses! (1980) is a movie that I recently watched on Tubi. The storyline follows a pair of tourists traveling through Israel who discover a scroll of the biblical Herschel who was the actual person behind the events in the bible that Moses received credit for. They discover Herschel's path to fame and how Moses stole all of the credit.

This movie is directed by Gary Weis (LA Law) and stars Dudley Moore (Arthur), Dom DeLuise (Blazing Saddles), Richard Pryor (Harlem Nights), John Ritter (Sling Blade), Laraine Newman (Coneheads) and James Coco (Murder by Death).

This cast is absolutely amazing - from the main characters to the side characters to the cameos, really impressive list of actors. Unfortunately, while this concept had potential, and the cast was awesome, it wasn't really that funny. There are a bunch of random and fun circumstances, and Ritter and Pryor were excellent in their roles. I just wanted this movie to be funnier.

Overall, this is a movie that should have been great...but wasn't. I would score this movie a 5/10 and recommend seeing it once.

Released the year before The History of the World: Part One, Dudley Moore took his own crack at a biblical spoof: Wholly Moses! In it, a group of modern tourists are being bused through Israel, and during a lunch break, two of them (Dudley and Laraine Newman) wander off and come across an ancient scroll telling the tale of a man who lived through Biblical times but wasn't included in any text. Parts of it are really funny, like when Dudley does all the classic things Moses did in the Bible - but not really. He thinks he parted the waters, but really someone else dammed up the river with boulders. He thinks he can cure the blind and lame, and when he comes across a beggar with both afflictions, he declares his intention to fix his ailments. The beggar is faking it to get money from the townspeople, so when Dudley pokes his eye, he exclaims, "What are you trying to do, blind me?" Everyone is impressed because he can "now" obviously see. Other parts aren't that great, as it's easy to imagine the screenwriters just thought the jokes were funny while sitting around the table or rehearsing. Some jokes are milked too much, and if you don't like anachronistic humor, you don't stand a chance at laughing.

I thought James Coco was very cute as Dudley's father and devoted slave. You'll see tons of familiar faces in the supporting cast, from cameos to larger parts: Richard Pryor, Dom DeLuise, Jack Gilford, John Houseman, Madeline Kahn, Paul Sand, and John Ritter. You can give it a shot, and if you laugh at about fifty percent of the jokes, you'll probably enjoy it. If you can't stand it after about twenty minutes, it won't get any better for you.