The Magdalene Review

By the time Jesus Christ, Superstar was adapted for film and released in 1973, it was already a phenomenal hit. With a well-conceived story behind the lyrics and music, Superstar was to the early 1970s was The Da Vinci Code is to us today: inspiring to some, blasphemous to others.

Also released in 1973 was a movie called The Gospel Road, a June and Johnny Cash vehicle. While I can’t speculate if its intended purpose was to save souls or to bolster Cash’s new pious image, it was, unfortunately, quite terrible. Schmaltzy and sentimental, it relied on the Southern Gospel habit of rendering the story in unsophisticated and nostalgic terms. I know this kind of material moves people; I was raised reading shape notes from my grandmother’s hymnals to the Carter classic “Will the Circle Be Unbroken.” Her out-of-tune piano had a timbre of tin, just right for music sung by honky-tonkers turned Sunday churchmen. This movie is exactly the kind of thing that my grandparents would find inspiring. People of humble rural origins, meager education, and strong faith, they appreciate that kind of American folk Christianity.

So, down to the issue at hand: Mary Magdalene in these two vastly different 1973 movies. Yvonne Elliman graced the role in Jesus Christ, Superstar, an energetic presence with a lilting voice. She convinced me that she was in love with Jesus, as a man, a teacher, a larger-than-life leader of a movement. Her conflict was apparent while singing “I Don’t Know How to Love Him:”

Yet, if he said he loved me,
I’d be lost. I’d be frightened.
I couldn’t cope, just couldn’t cope.
I’d turn my head. I’d back away.
I wouldn’t want to know.
He scares me so.
I want him so.
I love him so.

Before watching The Gospel Road, I admit that I first enjoyed the recent Hollywood Johnny Cash biography, Walk The Line. If that film is at all accurate, I can understand to some degree why June Carter Cash would have wanted to play Mary Magdalene on film. Judged harshly for her divorces, perhaps she felt some kinship with the haunted Mary Magdalene whose sexuality had become the focus of her entire existence. Unfortunately, Carter Cash wasn’t much of an actress. She portrayed Mary Magdalene as grateful, astonished and overwhelmed, but not much else. During the scene in which Jesus heals her, it was difficult to ascertain whether she was laughing with joy or crying in relief from whatever vague problems troubled her. She had the first real speaking part in the entire movie, and it was obvious that the film was written to spotlight her role.

Overall, these two movies are in completely different classes, artistically and stylistically. The same is true of these two Mary Magdalenes. Although I can respect June Carter Cash’s interpretation of the character, I didn’t buy it; it was as shallow as the rest of the movie. In contrast, Yvonne Elliman presented Mary Magdalene with all of the subtlety, talent, and fire that fueled the rest of Jesus Christ, Superstar.