Editing The Big Fisherman (section)

==Reception==
''Variety'' called it "pious but plodding."<ref>[https://archive.org/details/variety215-1959-07/page/n6/mode/1up?q=%22john+saxon%22 Review of film] at ''Variety''</ref>

''[[Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide]]'' (2012 edition) gave ''The Big Fisherman'' 2½ stars out of 4, describing it as a "sprawling religious epic" and deciding that it is "seldom dull, but not terribly inspiring." ''[[Steven H. Scheuer's Movies on TV and Videocassette]]'' (1993–1994 edition) also settled on 2½ stars out of 4, writing that "the story of Simon called Peter" "unfolds with predictable pageantry and uplifting sermonizing".

Assigning 2 stars (out of 5), ''[[The Motion Picture Guide]]'' (1987 edition) found it to be "long, often-enraging and totally miscast" with "a nonsinging Keel as Saint Peter". Evaluating the presentation as "just so much biblical nonsense because such liberties are taken that any serious student of the life and surrounding events will take exception," the write-up declares that "Douglas wrote the novel but made the mistake of entrusting it to the wrong people." After pointing out the film's "numerous technical mistakes: microphone boom shadows, klieg lights, Martha Hyer's vaccination mark", the ''Guide'' concludes that "to make a love story the focal point of such a potentially dynamic saga of history's most memorable era was a bad decision. One of the rare bummers by Disney in those years."<ref>''The Motion Picture Guide'' (Chicago, 1987), volume I, page 193</ref>

[[Leslie Halliwell]] in his ''Film and Video Guide'' (5th edition, 1985) dismissed it as a "well-meaning but leaden adaptation of a bestselling novel which followed on from ''The Robe''. He concluded that it is "too reverent by half, and in many respects surprisingly incompetent." Halliwell's quoted ''[[Monthly Film Bulletin]]'' ("its overall flatness of conception and execution is a stiff price to pay for the lack of spectacular [[sensationalism]] characterizing its fellow-epics") and ''[[The Hollywood Reporter]]'' ("the picture is three hours long, and, except for those who can be dazzled by big gatherings of props, horses and camels, it is hard to find three minutes of entertainment in it").