Esther and the King is a 1960 biblical epic drawing on the text of Megillat Ester (Book of Esther) about a Jewish queen thwarting a genocide of Jews. In other words, what else is new? They tried to kill us, we survived, let’s eat–am I right? Most of us did the eating the other day, of course, as Seudat Purim (Purim meal) morphed into Shabbos dinner. Because of the pandemic, many were unable to join in on a communal meal during the last time Purim fell immediately prior to Shabbos in 2021. It won’t be happening again between now and 2040. But I digress.

I intended to watch Esther and the King the other day with a review timed to Purim celebrations on the 14 Adar. With 15 Adar being on Shabbos, the Shushan Purim celebrations in Jerusalem and other walled cities are observed this year on the 16 of Adar. Because of the time change, I wasn’t up for a Saturday night movie–it’s conference tournament weekend, too–so I finally made time on Sunday for the 109-minute film. The film follows biblical epics like Samson and Delilah, David and Bathsheba, The Ten Commandments, and Solomon and Sheba.

Esther and the King is far from being a faithful adaptation of the Book of Esther. Put it this way: it’s not the film that you would assign students to learn about the Purim story. For one, the megillah makes it perfectly clear that Queen Vashti (Daniella Rocca) refused the king’s invitation. Rashi quotes the sages as saying that she refused because leprosy broke out–additionally, she would have made Jewish girls work on Shabbos. As such, it was decreed that she be put to death. The film suggests that she is cheating with Haman (Sergio Fantoni).

While Haman orders her death in the film, it plays out differently in the megillah. For one, he made this proposal to the king and his ministers following Vashti’s refusal to show up. Speaking of Haman, Sergio Fantoni looks nothing like Haman is traditionally depicted in artwork. There’s no hat–you know, the one that inspired Jews to eat hamantaschen on Purim. Nor is there any beard.

Simon (Rick Battaglia) is completely fictional. He doesn’t exist. The character is made up here so as to create something of a love triangle with Esther and King Ahasuerus (Richard Egan) and then he gets a heroic death late in the film. Didn’t happen. As such, she wasn’t whisked away from a wedding to a ceremony with other virgins being collected for the king’s perusal, under the supervision of Hegai (Robert Buchanan).

Esther and the King would have you think that Mordecai (Denis O’Dea) was one of the king’s advisors. He wasn’t. Esther 1:14 clearly states the people who closely advised the king:

“His closest advisers were Carshena, Shethar, Admatha, Tarshish, Meres, Marsena, and Memucan, the seven ministers of Persia and Media who had access to the royal presence and occupied the first place in the kingdom.”

Chapter 3 of Esther deals with Haman and his plot to kill the Jews of Persia and its 127 provinces. Unfortunately, again, the film doesn’t align with the text. Instead, Esther and the King would have audiences believe that it was a pre-ordained law in place prior to the ascent of King Ahasuerus to the throne and that Esther advised him to ignore it. This is sort of a big deal because Esther hid the fact that she’s a Jew and only because of Haman does she reveal herself as Jewish. What we have in the film is Haman–who is somehow single and childless–planning to assassinate the King and then plan to kill Mordecai and the Jews.

There’s no fasting for three days. There’s zero feasting where Esther reveals Haman’s plot to the kings. Nor is there any king-decreed killing where the Jews are allowed to defend themselves from a previously ordered genocide of Jews. The very core things that make up the Jewish holiday of Purim are completely missing in Esther and the King. While there might be some things from the text in the film, they play out completely different from what we read in Megillat Ester.

Most interestingly, the film refers to the Jews as Judeans. Had they actually read the text (Esther 2:5), they would have known that everyone exiled with the king of Yehudah (Judah) were referred to as Yehudim (Yehudites). Maybe having a better religious consultant, if they had one at all, would have improved Esther and the King. I know The Ten Commandments has its own flaws but this is even worse.

Let’s talk about casting. A lot of actors are terribly miscast in the film. Among them are leads Joan Collins and Richard Egan. I’m very familiar with the Book of Esther but their acting performances made it very hard for me to actually buy into their relationship. It certainly doesn’t help when the script isn’t up to par. Sure, it was 1960 standards but had Sefaria been around, they could have done a better job with the script. As things stand now, Esther and the King completely fails in that regard.

There’s a good film to be made about the Purim story but Esther and the King contains way too many fabrications.

DIRECTOR: Raoul Walsh
SCREENWRITER: Raoul Walsh and Michael Elkins, Ennio De Concini (uncredited)
CAST: Joan Collins, Richard Egan, with Denis O’Dea, Sergio Fantoni, Rick Battaglia, Renato Baldini, Gabriele Tinti, Rosalba Neri, Robert Buchanan, Daniella Rocca, Folco Lulli

20th Century Fox released Esther and the King in theaters on December 14, 1960. Grade: 1/5

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