Tied for the best movie I have ever seen

An action-packed slog

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

King Saul has lost favor with God, war is imminent. The only man Saul is afraid of is the prophet Samuel. Samuel arrives to prophesies about a man that God will anoint a man king out of the land of Benjamin to rule over Israel - that man is David. David must fulfill the prophesy but King Saul is willing put up a battle or die before he will bow down to David and give up his throne. Before David can take the throne, he must fight Goliath. In the end, King David restores Saul back to the throne. This is a pretty decent version of the biblical story. It's not a big long Epic tale but of a good length to give us a movie version (around an hour and a half long).I do not rate films of this nature by how much it matches the bible tale nor do I rate these types of films by how much I believe the story is true. I rate them by how well entertained I was by them, how well it was filmed and acted out. My rating is not for my personal beliefs, but for how well I enjoyed it.4/10

It was one of those nights when there was absolutely nothing good on TV. I went through many channels on my TV and landed on Trinity Broadcasting Network. I do on occasion watch TBN but usually for Robert Schuller or maybe when I feel I need extra inspiration.This movie began and "David and Goliath" was all I needed to see to stay tuned,along with reading the story as a boy and the fact Orson Welles plays Saul. (I wonder if that was "his" voice in the English dubbing?) Cetainly if any film needs a good restoration this one really needs it. I think it would be a lot more enjoyable if it were.Welles does a great service to this film and I don't think there ever was a film that didn't benefit from his presence (even The Muppett Movie featured Welles!) Aside from the grandeur that is Orson,is some good storytelling but some of the unfortunate liberties movie makers seem to take with biblical stories.First there's David himself,with the curly locks and and looking like a muscle bound cross between Michael Landon or Kurt Russell. (Acoording to IMDb the actor who plays him passed away August 17th,2006 oddly enough). David also has a first love who apparently,according to a wise old man,was taken from him by a flash of lightning in a rainstorm for God's higher purpose. Of course she had dreamed the other night that she was taken far from their land,quite a coincidence.As we know,David has been chosen by God to one day replace Saul as the King Of Isreal and tired and worn out looking Saul's not about to take it. David arrives in Isreal sees sin after sin taking place in the streets (one female dancer looks like she stepped off a burlesque stage) and (amazingly) gets the entire mass in the streets to quiet down.Just long enough for him to give a speech about their sins and basically that it's an abomination before God and how it's Saul's lack of leadership that's led to it. You'd think a young man who'd just arrived in a city and starts shooting his mouth off would get stones thrown at him but,no they all cheer for him. One of Saul's guards approaches David and David gives him one heck a blow to the head with his fist! leading to David being given Sanctuary by the church.Meanwhile,another king is threatening to overtake Saul and have both his country and Isreal. (The English voice for this king sounds like a guy from the tough side of Chicago!)His lackey offers to draft the giant monster of a man Goliath (I'm guessing 10ft. tall or more)to help defeat Saul and his armies. (The lackey sounds like Ernest T. Bass from The Andy Griffith Show.) In one funny scene Goliath picks him up off the ground (in an obvious clay figure moment).Anyhow David is finally brought before Saul and as would happen,he takes a liking to Saul daughter and becomes Saul's ally (although Saul doesn't know it yet.) Then we get to the battles between the two kingdoms and what we tuned in for to begin with. To see David take out Goliath with his "sling-shot". (A stretchy piece of material with a cradle for the rock). A good deal of this movie mirrors The Ten Commandmants but certainly isn't on that grand level. Mostly just in plot point and look:Leader trying to stop God's chosen one - sins of the people of Isreal - big sets and of course the perfect looking heroes. ..and it's only 90 minutes.Overall though,despite it's weaker points (english dubbing is always unintentionally funny)it's a pretty good movie. I'd recommend it for younger viewers and maybe people who like biblical epics or Orson Welles devotees. 6 stars for convincing enough sets,a great battle sequence and the casting of Welles and whoever chose Goliath (where'd they find that guy?). Along with a well told story,then again the Bible has plenty of them to tell. (END)

This Italian made sand and sandal epic would probably be long forgotten were it not for the presence of Orson Welles as King Saul. Certainly the man who played David in David and Goliath, Ivo Payer, certainly did not enter the ranks of screen immortals.David and Goliath took as many liberties with scripture as any good Cecil B. DeMille film, but without DeMille's sense of grandeur and spectacle. For instance in this film as a result of the battle where David defeats Goliath and the Philistines are routed, the Ark of the Covenant which the Philistines had captured is returned. Actually those are separate incidents that are not connected at all.Another thing is that at least I've always interpreted David to be a rather callow youth when he was doing his shepherd thing before God sent Samuel looking for him. And he's still a callow youth when he's in battle with Goliath. The old Negro spiritual is called Little David Play On Your Harp, not without reason.Ivo Payer is a rather muscular young man looking like he stepped from of those Italian muscle man epics so popular at the time. Of course the sight of all that bare chested beefcake sent many hearts fluttering in the audience. In that sense David and Goliath is right in the DeMille tradition.The only reason this film is remembered if at all today is because of Orson Welles. Welles at the time was picking up work here and there to finance his own projects. Sometimes it would be something as good as Compulsion the year before, more often it was something like David and Goliath.Still Welles is a consummate professional and he invests Saul with an air of tragedy about him. At the point we meet Saul, God has already decided he's not the man for the job as King of Israel. But Saul is not about to accept that verdict. If he can't beat David head on, he'll try and co-op David by bringing him into his household and matching him up with his daughter.And of course there's Saul's son Jonathan. He's there, but none of the business about a gay relationship between David and Jonathan is in this film. Jonathan knows full well that his father has lost favor with the Lord and he's aware of his father's character weaknesses. He too, befriends David more out of a sense of survival than anything else.English actor Hilton Edwards plays Samuel the Prophet and he comes across as a poor man's version of Finlay Currie. He's the only other English speaking player in the cast besides Orson Welles.David and Goliath will not pass muster with either biblical scholars or with lovers of big screen spectacle. Still fans of Orson Welles will want to see this film to see how much a great talent can lift even a piece of mediocrity to a level of some respectability.

This cheesy but entertaining sword-and-sandal movie has more in common with the muscleman spectacles being made in Italy at the time than it has with the superior Biblical epics made by Hollywood in the same era, such as "Ben Hur" and "The Ten Commandments." The dialogue is stilted, the acting stiff, and the departures from the Biblical narrative make it unsuitable as a Sunday school lesson (i.e., Jerusalem did not become part of Israel until David conquered it after Saul's death; in one scene the prophet Samuel quotes verses from the Book of Ecclesiastes, which hadn't been written yet). On the credit side, the movie has lots of pretty girls (what's a Biblical epic without scantily clad dancing girls?) and an exciting battle scene. Hilton Edwards (billed as Edward Hilton) hams it up amusingly as Samuel, and an alarmingly obese Orson Welles gives a commanding performance as Saul, showing that life can be tough for a working actor even if you're a genius. Aside from Welles, only the sexy Eleonora Rossi-Drago, as Saul's scheming daughter Merab, manages to create a three-dimensional character. Overall, the acting is so poor that circus strong man Kronos, as Goliath, actually gives one of the better performances even though all he does is grunt.