The Robe is a 1953 American fictional Biblical epic film that tells the story of a Roman military tribune who commands the unit that is responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus.

[4] Like other early CinemaScope films, The Robe was shot with Henri Chrétien's original Hypergonar anamorphic lenses.

At the auction site, Marcellus is reunited with Diana, his childhood love, who is now a ward of Emperor Tiberius and has been pledged in marriage to the regent Caligula.

Diana goes to the port to say she will appeal to Tiberius on Marcellus' behalf, and the pair pledge their love and reaffirm their youthful promise to marry one day.

Accompanied by Demetrius and the centurion Paulus, Marcellus arrives in Jerusalem on the same day that Jesus, who is being hailed as the Messiah, enters the city.

Marcellus wins Jesus' robe from Paulus in a dice game on Calvary, but when he uses it to shield himself from rain, he feels a sudden, intense pain.

Recent DVDs and Blu-ray discs of the film present it in the 2.55:1 widescreen format, and also feature the original multitrack stereophonic soundtrack.

[20] Sponsored by Ford, The Robe was first telecast on Sunday, March 26, 1967 (Easter), at the relatively early hour of 7:00 P.M., EST, to allow for family viewing.

[citation needed] MCA, which acquired the rights to the American Decca recordings, later issued an electronic stereo version of the mono tape.

[citation needed] In 2003, Varèse Sarabande released a two-CD set of the film's original stereophonic score on its club label.

RCA Victor included a suite from the film—recorded in Dolby surround sound—on its 1973 album Captain from Castile, which honored the film's composer, longtime Fox musical director Alfred Newman.

[28][29] The film gradually expanded to 44 locations by the end of October, and it remained number one at the box office for nine straight weeks.

[36] In his review of the film, Frank Quinn of the New York Daily Mirror called CinemaScope "a new realistic and phenomenal concept of the art of motion picture production.

"[36] Kate Cameron of the New York Daily News claimed, in an eight-star review (four stars for the film and four for CinemaScope), that "any picture projected on a flat screen...is going to seem dull" after The Robe.

One magnificent scene after another, under the anamorphic technique, unveils the splendor that was Rome and the turbulence that was Jerusalem at the time of Christ on Calvary.

"[37] Bosley Crowther of The New York Times was more critical, writing: "The human drama of this story of Christian conversion occurs amid sumptuous and scenic surroundings and are mighty impressive to see.

It is very hard to take seriously a film which presents so petulantly obvious a performance as Jay Robinson's sophomoric Caligula or a script which early observes: 'You have made me the laughing stock of Rome.'

"[42] Basil Wright wrote in Sight & Sound: "As a film on a religious subject, Henry Koster's The Robe has rather fewer lapses in taste than most of its predecessors.

In general, the subject is treated with reasonable reverence and is a deal better than Quo Vadis, which was a perfect illustration of Aristotle's remark about the ludicrous being merely a sub-division of the ugly.

[5] In the first episode of the 2020 miniseries The Queen's Gambit, The Robe is playing for the staff and wards of the Mathuen orphanage, and the film's final chorus of "Alleluia" provides a diegetic source of music while Beth breaks into the dispensary and overdoses.