Review: Richard Burton in The Robe

In writing about its 2009 Blu-ray release, The New York Times' Dave Kehr referred to The Robe as Richard Burton's "first important American film." That's fundamentally true: for this is a picture that symbolizes a call-to-action from an industry at a paradigm shift - as the first production ever released in CinemaScope, the film was a reminder to the public that the limits of television were finite, that entertainment of epic enormity could only be made possible via Hollywood filmmaking. The top-grossing film of 1953, The Robe is important solely due to the business virtues it represents. As a film, it's stodgy and forgettable at best.

My first thought in reading that line from Kehr was: "but what about My Cousin Rachel?!" After all, Rachel was Burton's first U.S. film, and the one that put him on the map - it secured him the Golden Globe for the now defunct New Star of the Year prize, as well as a fraudulent placement in the Supporting Actor category at the Oscars. Burton was even heavily favored to take home the Oscar for Rachel before he was upset by Anthony Quinn in Viva Zapata!, and while his Philip Ashley couldn't be any further away from a supporting character, how nice it'd have been if he had won - for his is sterling, intensely romantic work, one of the very few highlights to be had from a field of dreadfully banal male performances that year.

So sure, depending on who you ask, My Cousin Rachel might not be considered an "important" film, but Burton's performance there makes for a much more important inception than that of his work in The Robe.

The Robe exists as a quandary: the very nature of its narrative and its agenda means that it'll resonate with a certain population of viewers on a deeper capacity than with others. As a non-religious viewer myself, I acknowledge that my own opinions of this film and its lead performance may be afflicted with a partisanship I cannot fully withhold. That being said: preconceived misgivings aside, The Robe is quite watchable, and Burton is as committed to the role as one could possibly be with such material.

If the title of Sam Kashner's Furious Love is any indicator of the type of man Richard Burton might've been behind-the-scenes, then it ought not come as a surprise that there's a vehemence bubbling underneath Burton that reads as genuine and registers magnetically. He loves Olivia de Havilland fervently in Rachel, and that same reckless abandon appears here (albeit in a much more condensed, much less scathing form) in his scenes with Jean Simmons. As Marcellus descends into semi-madness after Jesus Christ's crucification, there's an audacity from Burton that ought to be appreciated, even if the material puts the actor at risk of coming off as absurd.

The man can only do so much. The sight of him waxing poetic about and writhing in torment at the touch of a sacred garment strikes as comical, no matter how hard I try to remain partial. Watch the him and the film's supporting characters preach about Jesus and Christianity long enough and one begins to feel as though the picture is literal propaganda. It's a strange viewing experience, for the material seems masturbatory in the way it pats itself on the back for overcoming the plight of being "othered," yet in tandem, the picture's messaging is so niche that it functions as an unabashed "other" in and of itself.

Ironically enough, it should be noted that Burton once wrote in his diaries, "I wish I could believe in a God of some kind but I simply cannot." This lends credence to his final scene in The Robe, wherein Marcellus opts to be put to death rather than renounce his Christianity: what ought to have been a powerful scene is instead a smidge underwhelming. Burton doesn't pack as strong a punch here - there's a phoned-in intensity that sparks in his voice accompanied with an unusual blankness that sits on his face - and one wonders if it's because he simply does not believe in the lines to which he must speak. That is, in a nutshell, how I feel about The Robe.

Burton's performance is simply fine. Watch The Robe out of curiosity by way of Burton, the Oscars, or for the special place it holds in film history. But also: watch My Cousin Rachel, which, in my eyes, is Burton's first important American film performance.