John Dalmas wrote:

>Why is that a howler, Steve? It is taken verbatim from the New Testament
>(Matthew 28:54), where it is indeed spoken by a Roman centurion.  Check
>your Funk & Wagnalls and you'll be reminded that a howler is a mistake,
>especially an embarassing one in speech that provokes laughter.  Therefore
>the line would be a "mistake" only asymmetrically, i.e.  if the listener
>were a non-believer and disallowed the believer any representation of his
>faith.

A howler can also be something so ludicrously out of place that it inspires
great HOWLS of laughter.  And, I'm sorry to say, that John Wayne looks and
sounds so uncomfortable standing there in a suit of Roman armor grinding
out his one line--and the camera work makes it so obvious that his bit was
filmed separately and then spliced in--that his contribution is an (almost)
blasphemous howler.

The whole film is one, actually.  Bad acting, bad casting, bad directing,
bad writing, bad acting and VERY bad theology.  Dorothy L.  Sayers, in her
prologue to "The Man Born to be King" discusses how a religious theme not
only does not excuse bad art, but how bad religious art is actually WORSE
than bad secular art.  ("Because it is a lie," she says, "and the Devil
is the father of all such.")

"Bruce Alan Wilson" <[log in to unmask]>