Lumsdal Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

Sharkflei Your blood may run cold, but you now find yourself pinioned to the story.

Ariella Broughton It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Abegail Noëlle While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

gavin6942 Inspired by the scriptural tale. Moabitess priestess Ruth is drawn both to a Judean man and to his talk of a forgiving God. After tragedy strikes, she begins a new life in Bethlehem."The Story of Ruth" received favorable reviews upon release. Variety called it "a refreshingly sincere and restrained Biblical drama, a picture that elaborates on the romantic, political and devotional difficulties encountered by the Old Testament heroine." I like the word "restrained" in that review. Although the overall theme is definitely the promotion of the Judeo-Christian god, especially over false idols, it is never to the point where it seems unbearably preachy. There is much more focus on the love life of Ruth, and the conflict between the two countries, Moab and Judea. It almost makes me want to learn more about the history of Moab and find where it disappeared to.

vitaleralphlouis Given the credits of talented filmmakers involved in this project, how could they have come together to create such a dismal, depressing and downbeat mess; based on one of the happiest stories in the Bible.OK, so Ruth's story was happy. Why not add a heavy dose of human sacrifice, training little girls to be butchered on the alter of the Moab's silly looking tin god. Then make Ruth a trainee involved in this perversion. (All this nonsense was invented for the movie.) Elena Eden was introduced in this role, and that's where her career ended. Not entirely to blame, nobody could have saved this awful movie.I thought it was interesting that the Moab's (whose "god" was a stupid-faced metal statue, incapable of doing anything, and often in need of repairs) would question "the invisible God" of the Judeans. How little has changed in 3000 years.

Greg Couture Twentieth-Century Fox assembled some rather felicitous elements for this production: an attractive cast; a reliable director, apparently teamed with a producer whose taste resulted is a modicum of restraint when dealing with those elements of the script that might have lent themselves to the kind of excess favored by C. B. DeMille; production values that weren't meant to rival the blockbusters of that era, such as "Ben-Hur" and "Spartacus," but still looked pretty handsome on the CinemaScope/DeLuxe Color screen; and one of Franz Waxman's typically lovely scores, which sounded especially good over the stereo sound system at the Santa Monica, California theater where I saw this during its post first-run release.I recall enjoying this film for giving Peggy Wood, then in her late-sixties, a rare opportunity to act on the big screen. I'd been one of her many fans ever since tuning in every week to watch her warm and wise incarnation as "Marta Hansen," the matriarch on one of the earliest and best long-running TV series, "Mama" (based on a beloved best-seller, successfully adapted to the Broadway stage, and eventually filmed, under George Stevens' direction as "I Remember Mama" in 1948, starring Irene Dunne in one of her most memorable screen appearances). As Naomi in "The Story of Ruth," Miss Wood's modest and very human performance gives this film a distinction that garnered many positive reviews. I also recall that TIME magazine had great fun in ridiculing a pagan Moabite temple dance performed by a phalanx of bodybuilders, apparently embarrassing Fox into deleting that sequence, since that scene of those graceless guys clumping around wasn't in the print I saw. I wonder if it will be restored in the upcoming DVD release.

HONEYWALL1 I first saw this movie in October, 1960, when I was thirteen and a half. Like many others of my generation, I had purchased the wonderfully made Dell Movie Classic comic book adaptation of the film, with its impressive color photo cover...obviously designed as pre-release publicity to make you want to go to see the film when it arrived in town. I was very impressed with the film and it became one of my all time favorite movies. I watched the great Biblical love story come alive and unfold itself across the CinemaScope screen and I found certain parts of it very moving...especially the death of Mahlon (Tom Tryon) in that cave. As Ruth, twenty years old Elana Eden is superb. As she realises that Mahlon has just died in front of her, she falls to her knees, buries her face in her hands and sobs bitterly (very much in the mold of Jennifer Jones in that final scene of LOVE IS A MANY-SPLENDORED THING) and I found the scene so moving that, as Elana Eden sobbed, so I began to sob, also. It was so well done, I became totally involved in it for two hours and twelve minutes of screen time. Because this is one of the quieter Bible stories, and contains no chariot races or battle scenes, it has been somewhat overlooked by most of today's movie historians and has only been shown on UK television once...in December, 1972, when it was already twelve years old...and not shown since. So, a couple of generations have come into the world since its original release who have never had the opportunity to see it. But it's certainly worth seeing and I give it ten out of ten. Thankfully, it's available on video in the USA and I was able to send to amazon.com for a copy last year. As to what became of Elana Eden, I'd like very much to know. According to the British November, 1960, edition of Photoplay, she signed a long term contract with 20th Century-Fox in 1960, presumably on the strength of her superb debut performance in this movie. Yet, as far as I know, she never acted again. Does anyone out there know why and whatever became of her? She was so very, very beautiful. I fell in love with her from the first time I saw her on the cover of that Movie Classic comic. A wonderful movie with an unmistakable air of sincerity about the whole production, THE STORY OF RUTH is something quite removed from most of Fox's output of the period.