Ishmael in Film - Part 1

This post is incomplete as there are a number of errors that need rectifying.

One of the characters who appeared in the History Channel's latest series The Bible was Ishmael, Abraham's first son by Hagar. Abraham in general hasn't appeared in that many films. As far as I'm aware his fleeting appearance in 1936's Green Pastures is the earliest remaining appearance in a film. I say "remaining" because I know of up to four silent films in which Abraham may appear.

The BFI film archive does list two films, which it seems are now lost, that are about an Ishmael, 1912's Pathé Hagar and Ishmael and The Marriage of Ishmael from the following year (Imperium films). I can't find a great deal of information on these films online - neither of them even appear in the IMDb, but the book on Pathé's silent historical films - Richard Abel’s "The Cine Goes to Town: French Cinema, 1896-1914" - might yield a little more information. The first sounds highly likelky to be about the biblical characters, but the second could very conceiveably be about a different Ishmael: the Bible only talks about his marriage in the future tense.

I'm also aware of some other films about Abraham courtesy of David Wilson. The Trial of Abraham’s Faith was made by British company Empire Films in 1910. According to a review in the 3rd February edition of Biopscope from the same year this is, as might be expected, about Abraham's willingness to sacrifice Isaac. The other is, yet again, from Pathé, 1911's Le sacrifice d'Abraham (1911). Neither appears to have featured Ishmael, although it is conceivable that he was included in a shot or two. Presumably though Ishmael does appear in Pathé's Le sacrifice d'Ismaël from the following year. Pathé were at it again the next year (1913) with Rebecca about Isaac's wife, though it seems unlikely Ishmael featured in this one. There were also brief appearances in 1918's Restitution and Le Berceau de dieu (1926), both of which tell a sweeping story across the whole Bible, rather than focus on a particular group of characters.

A few films from the sound era feature Abraham, but not Ishmael, including The Living Bible's entry Abraham: Man of Faith (1952), Greatest Heroes of the Bible: Abraham's Sacrifice (1979), Year One, The God Complex (both 2009) and 2011's Young Avraham. (N.B. I believe Hagar features in the Greatest Heroes episode, but no mention of Ishmael and I haven't seen it to be able to comment).

All of which leaves only 5 films that I can lay my hands on that deal with Ishmael: Huston's The Bible (1966); the longest available treatment, Abraham (1994) starring Richard Harris; Testament: Abraham (1996), The Bible: In the Beginning (2000) and this year's The Bible, I had meant to discuss these in this post but it's got too late so I will have to save it for another day soon.