1959 film
Solomon and Sheba is a 1959 American Biblical epic historical drama film directed by King Vidor, shot in Technirama (color by Technicolor), and distributed by United Artists. The film dramatizes events described in the tenth chapter of First Kings and the ninth chapter of Second Chronicles. It centers on the relationship between King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, played by Yul Brynner and Gina Lollobrigida, respectively. The cast also features George Sanders, Marisa Pavan, David Farrar and Harry Andrews.
The film differs substantially from Biblical sources and is highly fictionalized, most notably in representing the Queen of Sheba as an ally of ancient Egypt in opposition to King Solomon of Israel, and in her having a love affair with Solomon.
Tyrone Power was originally cast as Solomon and filmed the role for two months, before dying of an on-set heart attack. The role was hastily recast with Yul Brynner, who had previously turned it down, and large swaths of footage were re-shot to accommodate the change, though some footage of Power in the large-scale battle scenes remains in the final film.
The film premiered in London on October 27, 1959 before being released in the United States on Christmas Day of that year. It received a lukewarm critical reception and proved King Vidor’s final feature film before his death in 1982. In February 2020, the film was shown at the 70th Berlin International Film Festival, as part of a retrospective dedicated to Vidor's career.
Plot summary adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.