ABSTRACT
In Solomon and Sheba (1959), Solomon is a wise king who maintains unity among the twelve tribes of Israel. However, in a bid to fragment this alliance between the tribes, and so conquer and enslave the Israelites, the Pharaoh of Egypt makes a pact with the Queen of Sheba, who plans to seduce Solomon and so alienate him from his people’s affection. Although she succeeds in her mission, Sheba falls in love with Solomon and is converted to his faith. Furthermore, as she prays for Solomon’s God to protect him, Solomon fi nds a way to reunite the tribes and defeat the Pharaoh’s army. However, Sheba still represents a foreign presence in Israel, and, although she bears Solomon’s only child, she does not remain in Israel to become its queen. Instead, she willingly returns to Sheba and promises that on her return her people will learn to worship Solomon’s God and that she will raise Solomon’s son to be Sheba’s ruler-Sheba’s matriarchal throne will become a patriarchal one. Not only does the fi lm explicitly concern contamination in which a range of distinctions are threatened but the fi gure who represents the threat of contamination is a woman and, more specifi cally, an Italian sex symbol, Gina Lollobridgida: “the original
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Italian overstuffed star.”1 Filmed on location in Spain and featuring an international cast, this biblical epic presents its “foreign” materials both as marketable spectacle and as problems that need to be managed and contained.
