Gee Whiz & Genesis

Sodom and Gomorrah. Salt was the wealth of the "cities of the plain," and salty was their reputation. "God gave them up," St. Paul says, "unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another." To a moviemaker, the subject presents certain problems of visualization. But Producer Goffredo Lombardo, one of Italy's mightiest cinemagnates, is no man to be daunted by difficulties. De Luxe Color, cast of thousands, budget of $5,000,000--he spared no effort in Sodom and Gomorrah, and in consequence his super-colossus stands as a milestone in the history of cinema. It is the first motion picture that ever tried to tell the story of sodomy to the kiddies.

Only the kiddies, in any case, are likely to sit through this bushwa. Sodom is presented as a mighty metropolis, the New York of the Negev; actually, it was more like the Atlantic City of the Dead Sea, a boom town that got brimstoned about 1900 B.C. And the Bible story, as Producer Lombardo tells it, has plenty of gee whiz but very little Genesis. Lot (Stewart Granger) is shown as an athletic saint who spends most of his time improbably clobbering swordsmen with a shepherd's crook. His wife (Pier Angeli) is shown as a scarlet woman of Sodom who looks back at the destruction of her home town and is turned to--now if that's a pillar of salt the Venus de Milo is Mother Machree. And the big blast in the last reel is a low-cost holocaust, obviously done in miniature, that practically constitutes an insult to Jehovah.

As for the treatment of Sodom's sins, customers could probably see more sex in the back row balcony than is shown on the screen. Now and then a girl stares fixedly at another girl--but women are forever looking at each other's clothes. Once the handsome villain (Stanley Baker), trying hard to look immoral, nibbles on his sister's finger--but he just looks like a guy who likes to bite other people's nails. Stewart Granger looks a Lot too English, but at least he doesn't have to pronounce the picture's most ludicrous line. "Greetings!" cries the Queen of Sodom (Anouk Aimee) to her victorious troops. "Greetings, Hebrews and Sodomites!"

Caution: customers who walk out before the finish of this picture should be careful not to look back at the screen.

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