The Story of Ruth

A young woman raised in a temple in Moab serves a religion that sacrifices children. She meets an Israelite family who have come there, and what she learns makes her question her own faith. When her husband dies she goes with her mother-in-law to Bethlehem. Nobody accepts her because she is a foreigner; she lives by gleaning in the fields. The subject is not religion but a migrant woman being accepted into a new community. Ruth's foreignness is at the centre: she knows the language but is excluded as a Moabite and has nobody but her mother-in-law. The form is major studio period production: broad sets, crowds of extras, saturated colour. The narrative expands a short biblical text; the temple section and the trial scene were written entirely for the film. It belongs to the wave of biblical adaptations made through the fifties and sixties. Where most of those were built on male heroes, this one rests entirely on the relationship between two women, an uncommon choice for the period. Elana Eden, who plays the lead, was an unknown Israeli actress found by the studio after a long search. Stuart Whitman and Tom Tryon are in the cast. Henry Koster directs. Who it is for: viewers who like classical-era biblical adaptations. Who it is not for: anyone wanting pace; the film is long and its middle is heavy.