Review by All Movie Guide
All Movie Guide
is neutral about it.
Based on Nikos Kazantzakis's novel O Hristos Xanastavronetai and co-authored by Dassin and fellow Hollywood blacklistee
Ben Barzman, Celui Qui Doit Mourir (aka He Who Must Die) is the kind of movie that the promulgators of the Hollywood blacklist were terrified of ever seeing made -- and one can only conclude that, in driving Dassin and Barzman out of Hollywood, they did both men and the rest of us an enormous favor; because this movie could never have been made in Hollywood. And it comes so close to sacrilege in its juxtaposing of images and notions steeped institutionalized Christianity, politics, capitalism, and greed, that it is positively subversive. What's more, it trades so easily in Scripture-based images, that it can make even the most casually religious among us feel uncomfortable, if not outright guilty. And in the midst of that subversive juggling act -- an irreverent if not downright destructive look at religious hypocrisy, Dassin manages also to create credibly believable, fully fleshed-out and motivated characters, and to tell their stories intimately despite his use of a wide-screen anamorphic frame; indeed, along with
Douglas Sirk's
The Tarnished Angels, done just a little bit later, this movie may be the finest and most sensitive and intimate use of black-and-white anamophic shooting that one will ever see. In all of these regards, Celui Qui Doit Mourir is a magnificent and unexpected conjuring trick, operating on so many levels succssfully as to be a marvel to behold simply in the watching. Dassin gets a good deal of help from a special cast, several of whom -- including Pierre Vaneck,
Jean Servais, and Gert Frobe -- offer some of the best work of their respective careers, in this seemingly simple tale of faith expressed and challenged. Celui Qui Doit Mourir was also
Jules Dassin's first professional collaboration with his future wife
Melina Mercouri, and so had great personal importance to him -- but taken merely on its own terms, it represents a kind of peak in his career, far outdoing even the best of his Hollywood films. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide