MovieChat Forums > Jesus Christ Superstar (1973) Discussion > King Herod's song

King Herod's song

posted 15 years ago by veiledbyshadow
10 replies | jump to latest

I LOVE it, OMG.
There's that guy in drag that pulls down his sunglasses and goes: "Mmmmm."
Then there's the king himself... "If you are the Christ, the great Jesus Christ..."

LMAO! It turns me on!!!

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[–] CraftyLittleDevil 15 years ago

Yep, that's one of my favorite parts in the movie also.

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"O.R. they?"

[–] lroy77 13 years ago

I love this scenery...the bright colors, the Dead Sea water scenery. The rest of the movie is so drabby colors, more earth tones.

The the tone of the song is very insulting it's somehow "uplifting" in a catchy sort of way...more tongue in cheek than sober if you know what I mean. Kinda of like Burlesque.

[–] GravityCakes 10 years ago

I agree -- I think the song is fantastic. It is very twenties inspired (complete with the ragtime piano bit), and the dancers do several twenties era dances in their routine, so it makes sense that it has an exuberant and decadent quality in addition to being a catchy tune (sort of Cole Porter-esque)

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[–] kamidesu 14 years ago

Hahaha so funny.

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[–] bilsnod 13 years ago

Walk across my Swimming Pool!

[–] 13 years ago

[deleted]

[–] jschillig 11 years ago

I think it was meant to show Herod as an illegitimate leader, a puppet of the Romans only interested in his own personal pleasures.

This.

You guys might be interested in a story about Josh Mostel's casting. Josh, you see, is the son of Zero Mostel, the original Tevye in Broadway's Fiddler on the Roof. When Norman Jewison was directing the movie version of Fiddler, he decided that Zero's kind of performance wasn't what he wanted for his movie version, so he cast Topol (who did do a marvelous job). Zero was quite peeved about this.

A year or so later, of course, Jewison directed JCS and cast Josh Mostel as Herod. The story goes that when Josh called up his old man to tell him the good news, Zero snorted, "You should have told him to cast TOPOL'S son!"

Anyway, as far as Herods go, I'd also like to recommend Victor Spinetti (British comic character actor, pal of the Beatles, and veteran of three of their movies) on the 20th anniversary studio recording. He practically walks away with the whole album, especially his delivery of "Hey...aren't...you...SCARED of me, Christ? Mr. Wonderful Ca-Rist?!"

[–] MoviemanCin 9 years ago

I agree. I loved Josh Mostel and the song. However, he wasn't really in drag. He was wearing a pair of white shorts. I just saw it again last night on TCM.

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[–] bok602 9 years ago

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that I absolutely HATED this scene.

Unequivocably, without doubt the worst scene in the film and an utter train wreck of casting.

I love the song and the performance on the original concept album, but the casting and performance of Josh Mostel as Herod completely ruined the song, the scene and the film. He couldn't sing, could barely dance and had no concept of acting. The entire scene was cringe-worthy.

Another detail that seems to get overlooked is that if the film-makers had gone with the original actor for the part, Tim Curry would have played Herod and the scene would have become a screen classic.

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[–] BoxOfficePoison 8 years ago

I like Alice Cooper's version, and would love to see him play the role.

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