''The Prodigal'' is a 1955

Eastmancolor Eastmancolor is a trade name used by Eastman Kodak for a number of related film and processing technologies associated with color motion picture production and referring to George Eastman, founder of Kodak. Eastmancolor, introduced in 1950, was o ...

biblical epic Epic films have large scale, sweeping scope, and spectacle. The term is slightly ambiguous, sometimes designating a film genre and at other times simply big-budget films. Like epic poetry, epics in the classical literary sense, it is often focu ...

CinemaScope CinemaScope is an anamorphic format, anamorphic lens series used, from 1953 to 1967, and less often later, for shooting widescreen films that, crucially, could be screened in theatres using existing equipment, albeit with a lens adapter. Its cr ...

film made by

MGM Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. (also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures, commonly shortened to MGM or MGM Studios) is an American Film production, film and television production and film distribution, distribution company headquartered ...

starring

Lana Turner Julia Jean "Lana" Turner ( ; February 8, 1921June 29, 1995) was an American actress. Over a career spanning nearly five decades, she achieved fame as both a pin-up model and a film actress, as well as for her highly publicized personal life. ...

and

Edmund Purdom Edmund Cutlar Purdom (19 December 19261 January 2009)

. It was based on the

New Testament The New Testament (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus, as well as events relating to Christianity in the 1st century, first-century Christianit ...

parable about a selfish son who leaves his family to pursue a life of pleasure. The film also features James Mitchell,

Louis Calhern Carl Henry Vogt (February 19, 1895 – May 12, 1956), known by his stage name Louis Calhern, was an American actor. Described as a “star leading man of the theater and a star character actor of the screen,” he appeared in over 100 roles ...

Joseph Wiseman Joseph Wiseman (May 15, 1918 – October 19, 2009) was a Canadian-American theatre, film, and television actor. He starred as the villain Julius No in the first James Bond film, '' Dr. No,'' in 1962. He was also known for his role as crime boss ...

Cecil Kellaway Cecil Lauriston Kellaway (22 August 1890 – 28 February 1973) was a South African character actor. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor twice, for '' The Luck of the Irish'' (1948) and ''Guess Who's Coming to Dinner' ...

Audrey Dalton Audrey Dalton (born 21 January 1934) is an Irish-born American retired actress who mostly worked in the United States during the Golden Age of Hollywood. Biography Dalton was born in Dublin, Ireland, the daughter of Alice Shannon and soldier an ...

, and

Walter Hampden Walter Hampden Dougherty (June 30, 1879 – June 11, 1955), known professionally as Walter Hampden, was an American actor and theatre manager. He was a major stage star on Broadway in New York who also made numerous television and film appear ...

. Dancer

Taina Elg Taina Elisabeth Elg (9 March 1930 – 15 May 2025) was a Finnish and American actress and dancer. She appeared on stage, television and in film. Early life and career Elg was born on 9 March 1930 in Helsinki, and raised in Turku by her parent ...

made her film debut in ''The Prodigal''.

Plot

''In the times before Christianity, only a few people believed in one God. Most people believed in many gods. It was mainly the believers in Jehovah who stood against a multitude of some 65,000 strange and different gods. Of these, two of the most notorious were Baal and Astarte, the male and the female. Gods of the flesh, not of the soul. They were supposed to renew the fertility of the earth every year. In exchange, they demanded of their believers the sacrifice of money, jewelry and human life. Out of these times comes our story, based upon the Parable of the Prodigal Son as told in Luke, Chapter 15.'' The story is loosely based on

Jesus Christ Jesus (AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament, other names and titles, was a 1st-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the Jesus in Chris ...

parable of the prodigal son The Parable of the Prodigal Son (also known as the parable of the Two Brothers, Lost Son, Loving Father, or of the Forgiving Father; ) is one of the parables of Jesus in the Bible, appearing in Luke 15:11–32. In Luke 15, Jesus tells this sto ...

, from the Gospel According to

Luke 15 Luke 15 is the fifteenth chapter of the Gospel of Luke in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. The book containing this chapter is anonymous, but early Christian tradition uniformly affirmed that Luke the Evangelist composed this Gospel as we ...

:11-32, although considerable liberties are taken with the source material, chief among them being the addition of a female lead in the form of the high priestess of

Astarte Astarte (; , ) is the Greek language, Hellenized form of the Religions of the ancient Near East, Ancient Near Eastern goddess ʿAṯtart. ʿAṯtart was the Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic equivalent of the East Semitic language ...

, Samarra. Micah, a young Hebrew farm boy, sees Samarra and says he will have her. He demands that his father give him his inheritance and journeys to the city of

Damascus Damascus ( , ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in the Levant region by population, largest city of Syria. It is the oldest capital in the world and, according to some, the fourth Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. Kno ...

. There Samarra seduces him into losing his inheritance and betraying his religious faith. Enduring a number of difficulties, Micah finally realizes where he belongs and returns home to his father, who forgives Micah all of his sins and orders a lavish celebration of his return.

Cast

as Samarra *

Edmund Purdom Edmund Cutlar Purdom (19 December 19261 January 2009)

as Micah *

as Nahreeb *

as Ruth * James Mitchell as Asham *

Neville Brand Lawrence Neville Brand (August 13, 1920 – April 16, 1992) was an American soldier and actor. He was known for playing villainous or antagonistic character roles in Westerns, crime dramas, and ''films noir'', and was nominated for a BAFTA A ...

as Rhakim *

as Eli *

as Elissa * Francis L. Sullivan as Bosra *

as Carmish *

Sandy Descher Sandy Descher (born November 30, 1945) is an American former child actress of the 1950s. Life and career Born November 30, 1945, in Burbank, California, Descher is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Fred Descher. She has a younger brother, Michael. ...

as Yasmin *

John Dehner John Dehner (DAY-ner; born John Dehner Forkum; November 23, 1915February 4, 1992), also credited Dehner Forkum, was an American stage, radio, film, and television character actor. From the late 1930s to the late 1980s, he amassed a long list o ...

as Joram *

George Sawaya George Frances Carey Sawaya (August 14, 1923 – September 17, 2003) was an American actor and stuntman. He was best known for playing the role of Detective Lopez on Jack Webb's '' Dragnet''. Life and career Sawaya was born in Los Angeles, Ca ...

as Kavak *

as the Governor * Gordon Richards as Nahreeb's Scribe

Production

In the 1950s films with Biblical themes were very popular. Two friends, Sam Larson and Joseph Breen Jnr, became interested in the cinematic possibilities of the famous parable. Larson had muscular dystrophy and thought the story had resonance to the problems of young people today; he was also interested in setting of Damascus and Joppa in 70 BC, which had been rarely seen on screen. Larson and Breen wrote a 60-page treatment together. They took it to

Dore Schary Isadore "Dore" Schary (August 31, 1905 – July 7, 1980) was an American playwright, director, and producer for the stage and a prolific screenwriter and producer of motion pictures. He directed one feature film, ''Act One (film), Act One'', th ...

, head of production at MGM, who was interested. He assigned Charles Schnee to produce and Maurice Zimm to write a script. The film was originally to star Edmund Purdom,

Ava Gardner Ava Lavinia Gardner (December 24, 1922 – January 25, 1990) was an American actress during the Golden Age of Hollywood. She first signed a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1941 and appeared mainly in small roles until she drew critics' att ...

and

Vittorio Gassman Vittorio Gassman (; born Gassmann; 1 September 1922 – 29 June 2000), popularly known as , was an Italian actor, director, and screenwriter. He is considered one of the greatest Italian actors, whose career includes both important producti ...

. Maurice Zimm's script was based on the original parable but was technically an original work. It was set in Syria and Palestine in 79 BC. Eventually Gardner and Grassman dropped out. Dore Schary later said he "hustled Lana Turner into playing it" and "the sorry fact is I liked the script. I thought it would draw an audience. What I forgot was that C.B. De Mille had an exclusive on the Bible. Poor Lana swayed her way through the film but it was a hopeless task. The script was lifeless."Schary p 283 Schary says after two weeks filming "I saw we were in quicksand" and asked the MGM production office to calculate the cost if the studio abandoned the film. Since the sets had been built, costumes designed and contracts signed (over $200,000 was spent on costumes) the studio would have incurred a loss of $1.2 million. Schary decided to finish the picture on an accelerated schedule instead "and hoped that we wouldn't fare too badly".

Reception

According to MGM records the film earned $2,153,000 in the US and Canada and $1,990,000 elsewhere, resulting in a loss of $771,000. Dore Schary later called the film "the biggest and most embarrassing failure" and "the worst film I ever supported" in his time at MGM. ''The Prodigal'' was satirized in '' Mad'' #26 (November 1955) as ''The Prodigious''.

References

External links