the Israelites using their highly polished shields is sheer brilliance!Yul Brynner was brought in to replace Tyrone Power who died 3 day into filming, and here gives one of his best ever performances. Gina Lollobrigida is beautiful and seductive as the Queen of Sheba.I give this film 9 out of 10.

the great supporting and sometimes leading man George Sanders in one his nefarious performances. Solomon prays for wisdom which God grants him and Israel prospers. Neighbors become jealous and scared as a redeemed Sanders courtesy of Brynner builds Israel's army to a sizable number. They also fear their teachings of equality to all men and their notion of One God. Sheba is sent or chooses to tempt Solomon with riveting consequences. The problem with these movies in our modern eyes is that the writers have them talk in the way texts and related scriblings depicted dialogue back then which is as poetry with innuendoes and rhyme. This today is often seen as camp, such the case of recent Swords and Sandals like Gladiator avoiding these dialogue. The movie also bears a certain resemblance to De Mille's classic Samson and Delilah which kickstarted the whole genre. That said, a "Shield of light" action sequence is worth a look to see how it was staged and shot. Gina Lollobrigida is absolutely stunningly photographed and the performance is quite good. All in the one, one of the master's last can be your first intro into his ouevre.

it just me, or did he never smile in this or any other movie? Sexy!!!!!Gina Lollobrigia is waaaaaaaaaay hot in this movie! As the erotically inclined, temptress queen, she heats up the screen and blows everyone else out of the water! She and Brynner look very good together, and their love scenes are some of the HOTTEST I've seen in a 50's movie especially the incredible steamy one at the pagan orgy-WOW! ! Gina has Vulcan eyebrows! I've never seen her in anything else, but I hope I can! She's as va-va-voom as Sophia Loren!Other than these two hot actors, everybody else in the movie SUCKS. George Sanders is like a dull imitation of a villain-yawn! I got bored with the overlong battle scenes, most of which had no Historical basis at all! Errrrrggh!Overall, I give "Solomon and Sheba" an 8 out of 10, it should be a 6 but the sexiness and eroticism of the love story brings it up to an 8. If you like pointless epics with some sexuality thrown in, then I definitely recommend this movie to you. It is a great way to waste a boring afternoon alone!

Biblical account of the Queen of Sheba is brief. She visited King Solomon when she heard of his great wisdom and wealth and gave him gifts. That's it. Apocryphal legends have turned the story around. In other versions, they were lovers and allies. It is also suggested that she was the mysterious Beloved of whom Solomon wrote about in The Song of Solomons. This romance is the focus of this movie. Lush cinematography and cast of thousands. Deserts, palaces, crowd scenes, battles and other such gimmicks were the latest craze in the late 50's to draw people away from the new invention of television and bring them back to the movie palaces and theatres.Gina Lollabrigida, an Italian sex symbol of the 50's, stars as the Queen of Sheba. Though she is lacking dramatic power and her acting sounds like mere poetry and stilted, she truly acts the pagan Queen with much appeal. It is a role that is out of her repertoire. Her scenes with Yul Brynner as Solomon are impressive. Brynner was always criticized for being an actor who looked and sounded serious but was really a ham and old-fashioned Shakespearean kind of actor. The movie is an attempt to reflect the glory of The Ten Commandments but fails to do so. Nevertheless, if you're a fan of Biblical epics on the screen, and there are many, among them King David starring Richard Gere, and several Passion Of The Christ movies, as well as "The Bible..In The Beginning" which covers the accounts of the Flood, Sodoma and Gomorrah and many other tales...then this is the movie for you. It is the kind of movie most appreciated by Christians or biblical scholars.