The Silver Chalice

He looks like Marlon Brando, some reviewers said of this movie's 29-year-old star, but those comparisons would soon end. Soon to impress with his own intense brilliance, Paul Newman made his movie debut in this Biblical saga in the mode of Quo Vadis and The Robe. Set in Rome during the early Christian era, if focuses on an ill-fated sculptor sold into slavery and torn between his adoring wife (Pier Angeli) and a wily temptress (Virginia Mayo) - and threatened in his work by a power-mad sorcerer (Jack Palance) bent on overturning Christianity and becoming his own "true Messiah." The Silver Chalice's cast also includes Lorne Green, E.G. Marshall and a blonde Natalie Wood. But Newman is the movie's heart. "This young man," director Victor Saville predicted, "is destined for great things."

• drama
• romance