The Passover Plot (1975)

          Although the book upon which it’s based was published a decade earlier, The Passover Plot fits nicely into the mid-’70s zeitgeist by combining a conspiracy theory with pseudoscientific theorizing about the life of Christ. Because, hey, in a time preoccupied by Bigfoot, UFOs, and the Zapruder film, why not make a buck by challenging the belief system that gives meaning to millions of lives? The kicker is that for most of its running time, The Passover Plot offers a fairly reverent depiction of the Gospel, because the wild conspiracy theory that gives the picture its name doesn’t surface until the final scenes. The movie’s first hour is quite dull, a problem exacerbated by leading man Zalman King’s weird performance as Jesus, but once the filmmakers start tweaking Biblical lore, things get interesting. A couple of scenes even have a bit of emotional heft, though of course any remarks about The Passover Plot should be couched with acknowledgements that some viewers may find the entire picture heretical and/or offensive.

          The basis for this movie was a popular book by Hugh J. Schonfield, whose research led him to believe that Christ was not divine. Specifically, Schonfield claimed that while on the cross, Christ was given a drug that simulated death by slowing his heart, allowing apostles to claim his “body” and arrange a sighting of the “resurrected” Christ before he died from his wounds. Rather than a miracle worker, Schonfield suggested that Christ was a heroic revolutionary skilled at manipulating public opinion. Getting to this controversial material faster would’ve improved The Passover Plot greatly.

         That said, some stuff works even in the dull stretches. Donald Pleasence lends surprising poise to his turn as Pontius Pilate, eschewing his normal eccentricity; Scott Wilson gives a poignant performance as Judas; and Dan Hedaya is similarly touching as a conflicted apostle. (The movie employs Jewish names for characters, so Jesus is Yeshua, Judas is Judah, and so on.) Far more problematic is King, who channels palpable intensity but generally stares ahead vacantly in most scenes like he’s a model in a Calvin Klein commercial. Things get worse when he pours on the gas, especially during a ridiculous screaming scene. His acting, which runs the gamut from bland to terrible, greatly diminishes the film.

          On the other hand, the great composer Alex North contributes some majestic music, and cinematographer Adam Greenberg conjures a few beautiful lighting schemes. Like most problematic movies, The Passover Plot is neither entirely a failure nor entirely a success, and each viewer will have a different opinion about whether the good outweighs the bad. For this viewer, the picture was nearly redeemed by a compelling final act, though I confess partiality to Hedaya, Pleasence, and Wilson. If you seek out The Passover Plot, proceed with caution—and skepticism.

The Passover Plot: FUNKY

1980 Week: In God We Tru$t

          Improving somewhat over his weak directorial debut, The Last Remake of Beau Gueste (1977), actor Marty Feldman does an okay job as a storyteller with this satire of for-profit religion, which he cowrote with Chris Allen. Naturally, Feldman also plays the leading role, employing the same comic dexterity that made him a star in his native England before American audiences embraced his performance as Igor in Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein (1974). Featuring supporting turns by Peter Boyle, Andy Kaufman, and Louise Lasser—plus an extended cameo by Richard Pryor—In God We Tru$t never wants for skillful comedians. It also presents appealing themes of piety over profit and intimacy over repression. But In God We Tru$t disappoints more often than it connects. The characterizations are contrived, the satire is shallow, and most of the jokes misfire, especially the borderline distasteful sex gags. Slick work by the aforementioned big names compensates mightily, as do polished production values, so In God We Tru$t is basically watchable. Yet that’s about as far as one can go in terms of praise.

        The picture starts at a financially troubled monastery, where Brother Ambrose (Feldman) gets assigned to raise money. He sets his sights on televangelist Armageddon T. Thunderbird (Kaufman), but the super-wealthy preacher refuses to see the penniless monk. Ambrose then meets a prostitute named Mary (wink-wink) and an insane con-man preacher named Dr. Sebastian Melmoth, who drives a school bus converted into a traveling church, complete with a shingled roof and a steeple. Those roles are played by Lasser and Feldman’s Young Frankenstein costar Boyle, respectively. Most of this movie’s screen time gets chewed up by scenes of Mary giving Ambrose a sexual education and by scenes of Thunderbird, who sports an absurdly gigantic pompadour, fleecing his flock whenever he’s not consulting with a computer program called G.O.D. (voiced and eventually played onscreen by Pryor).

          Typical jokes include a punny monastery sign (“Keep Thy Trappist Shut”) and the bluntly satirical name of a house of worship (“The Worldwide Church of Psychic Self-Humiliation”). Sex gags feature Feldman taking cold showers until Mary sleeps with him, at which point the “Hallelujah” chorus fills the soundtrack. The picture also has slapstick chase scenes and a vignette of Feldman screaming a lustful confession to a deaf priest while the whole congregation listens intently. Alas, no matter how sincerely Feldman wanted to skewer Christians foibles, Monty Python’s outrageous Life of Brian (1979) was a hard act to follow. That said, it’s a shame this mediocre effort was Feldman’s final major project. He died in 1982, leaving behind only supporting roles in the ghastly Jerry Lewis flop Slapstick of Another Kind (1982) and the mediocre UK comedy Yellowbeard (1983).

In God We Tru$t: FUNKY

In Search of Noah’s Ark (1976)

          Another nonfiction winner from the folks at Sunn Classic Pictures—if by “winner” one means a ridiculous celebration of pseudoscience that presents hypotheses and rumors as if they’re stone-cold facts—In Search of Noah’s Ark explores various dubious claims that remnants of the Bible’s most famous ship rest atop Turkey’s Mount Ararat. While beardy host Brad Crandall describes “evidence” and theories with his persuasively stentorian voice, the filmmakers use documentary techniques, interviews, and stock footage to make their wildly unsupported claims seem credible. As with Sunn Classic’s docs about the Bermuda Triangle, Bigfoot, etc., the storytelling style is designed to excite the viewer’s imagination. First, the central premise is broken into units. Second, outlandish remarks and visuals “support” the veracity of each unit, with Crandall saying things like, “Now that’s impressive evidence.” Third, Crandall proceeds to the next unit, as if the previous item is no longer open to doubt. The guiding notion is that if X, Y, and Z are true, then the overarching premise (which comprises X+Y+Z) must also be true.
          In the ’70s, nobody shoveled bullshit quite as vigorously as Sunn Classics.

          In Search of Noah’s Ark begins with a cheaply rendered dramatization of the Noah story. To the accompaniment of Crandall’s narration, Noah receives commands from God, builds his ark despite scorn from neighbors, gathers two specimens of each living creature on Earth, and endures a catastrophic flood before opening his ark and repopulating the planet. The would-be comedic bits of a chimpanzee herding animals onto the ark are as underwhelming as the low-budget FX used to depict the ark floating across an endless ocean. After 25 minutes of this stuff, Crandall leads viewers into the meat of the picture. The presence of sediment in various global locations “proves” that water once covered the planet. The discovery of salt atop Mount Ararat “proves” the ocean once rose to the mountain’s peak. And so on. In one glorious bit, a scale model of the ark is set upon the waves of a laboratory tidal pool, demonstrating the seaworthiness of such a vessel. Wow.

          Eventually, the picture settles into its longest stretch, describing various expeditions to the top of Mount Ararat. Using photos, re-creations, and stock footage, the filmmakers relay eyewitness reports from folks who saw the ark atop the mountain. Fuzzy aerial photos and questionable analysis of wood samples further “corroborate” the findings. In Search of Noah’s Ark is as silly as it sounds, but the fun of these Sunn Classic explorations stems from embracing the “What if?” dimensions of the human experience. Setting aside the question of whether or not 1976 viewers took In Search of Noah’s Ark seriously, they showed up in droves to screenings—the picture grossed an astonishing $55 million, becoming one of the year’s most successful movies.

In Search of Noah's Ark: FUNKY

1980 Week: Wholly Moses!

Unfunny, uninteresting, and unmemorable, this half-assed comedy set in Biblical times offers a drab Hollywood counterpart to the previous year’s Life of Brian, a controversial satire created by the madmen of Monty Python. Whereas Life of Brian is a deliberately offensive movie that asks provocative questions about the nature of religion, Wholly Moses! is a brainless compendium of sketches posing as scenes. Dudley Moore, trying but not succeeding to slide by on charm, stars in a modern-day wraparound sequence as Harvey, a New York City history professor taking a low-budget tour of the Holy Land. While exploring a cave with fellow tourist Zoey (Laraine Newman), Harvey discovers an ancient scroll that tells the story of a man named Herschel. Most of the movie depicts that story. Born to corpulent slave Hyssop (James Coco), Herschel (played as an adult by Moore) was set adrift on the Nile at the same time as Moses, but, by an accident of timing, led a life of little consequence instead of finding a grand destiny. Thus, the central joke in the movie is painfully similar to the central joke in Life of Brian—a schmuck’s existence runs parallel with that of a Biblical icon. Director Gary Weis and screenwriter Guy Thomas use this scenario as a framework for a string of uninspired gags, occasionally juicing the mix with cameos by familiar actors. (Dom DeLuise, John Houseman, Madeline Kahn, and Richard Pryor are among those who appear.) Typical of the lame gags in Wholly Moses! is the S&M-laden puppet show in the city of Sodom, or the throwaway reference to a graven-images store called “Chock Full of Gods.” Moore’s appeal isn’t nearly strong enough to make Wholly Moses! bearable, and Newman, of Saturday Night Live fame, is a non-presence. The only time the movie sparks briefly to life is during John Ritter’s droll cameo as Satan, even though Ritter wears a cheap satin costume and carries a plastic pitchfork. Despite the tacky trappings, Ritter injects amusing world-weariness into his role, at one point whining, “Well, here come the damned—they’ll be expecting me.”

Wholly Moses!: LAME