Evening star., 1951-06-08

produced the makers of this temr
anity came to Rome. "Fabiola" is
q movie with everything, settings
Of Roman grandeur, thousands OF
actors, love story as passionate
as Samson's and Delilah's, a feast
of hungry lions on hungrier
Christians, gladiatorial contests.
and a revelation of debauched
Roman politics that would make
an anarchist of Calvin Coolidge.
In briefer words, "Fabiola" is
pure cinema looking back upon
one of the most spectacularly i'm
pure periods of human history.
Its scale is mammoth, as if it
were defying television to equal
"Fabiola" short of getting a screen
the size of the west wall of the
Department of Commerce build
ing.
The English sound track is a
dramatic oddity tackled onto the
Italian Aim by Playwright Marc
Connolly and Fred Pressburger. It
represents an interesting and not
too diverting effort to shape the
English language to the lip move
ments of outsize actors who often
obviously are saying something
else.
Productionwise, however, the
dudded sound track is an improve
ment over English subtitles which
often are both bad and dull Eng
lish and take the eye completely
of th7 picture. Connolly and
Pressburger have been quite clever
In much of "Fabiola" in chiseling
English to fit in verbal inches
made for Italian.
4 X II n
Alessandro Blasetti. director OF
''Fabiola." found himself a splen-
did set Of actors to match the
majesty Of his theme and his
background city, Rome. These are
headed by Michele Morgan as the
beautiful. bewildered heroine;
Henri Vidal as the magniflcently
muscular Ritual: Michel Simon as
Fabiola's father. Fabius. who
jeopardized the political status
quo by freeing his slaves, and
Louis Salou as the saturnine Full
vius whose favorite pastime was
feeding Christians to the flames
and the lines.
The spectator can tell at a glance
what virtues and villainies these
are supposed to represent and this
is good thing since the story
sometimes almost totally disap-
pears and the sound track sounds
almost as If it were kidding.
For all its flaws. however. most
Of which spring from the need for
ruthless editing of a much longer
film than 'Fabiola's" 95 minutes,
the Trans-Lux feature could hard
ly fail to be entertaining.
It has a whopping tale to tell
and all Of the basic dramatic In
gradients are in 1t, from dirty
politics to exalted and tormented
love.
To summarize, "Fabiola" is
about Rome In the year 313. It
still is a pagan city at the top. but
the liberal, Christian Constantine
Is on his way to take over. Among
the aristocrats on Constantine's
side is Fabius. Fabiola's father.
He is sure the Christian lower
classes have found doctrine that
is mankind's greatest gift, an ir-
resistable power that will set men
free regardless Of their condition
of enslavement.
The reactionary pagans are not
to give up without a fight, how
ever. They murder Fabius as a
dangerous liberal, pin the crime
on the Christians, send the latter
fleeing to the catacombs, and,
while the city is in wild ferment,
plot the greatest slaughter in
Rome's bloody history.
In the meantime, running
through this murderous interval
of intrigue. Fabiola and Ritual
are living through one of the great
tormented romantic sagas Of his