Faith Movie Classics for Friday

First, The Cardinal, Otto Preminger’s 1963 adaptation of Henry Morton Robinson’s novel. Tom Tryon plays Stephen Fermoyle, an Irish boy from Boston who rises from callow seminarian to prince of the Church in just two short decades. Along the way, he battles racism, fascism and even partial-birth abortion. In portraying one of his first bosses, Cardinal Glennon, John Huston takes only the occasional modest bite out of the scenery.

I’ve always wanted to read the novel, but it seems to be out of print. Florence King includes it on her desert island list:

The Cardinal opens in 1915 and traces Steve’s rise from Boston parish priest to prince of the church. My favorite parts are the behind-the scenes accounts of how the Vatican works, and the descriptions of the Roman contessa’s salon: a hierarchy of ecclesiastical guests, their rank denoted by the colors of their flowing capes and birettas (the book answers all the Protestant questions about vestments), soignée women kissing rings, learned Jesuits swapping bons mots, and Cardinal Merry del Val capping quotations from Horace while juggling oranges. That’s what I call a party. It’s enough to make me religious.

Now that’s what I call a recommendation.

Some kind soul condensed the film into eight minutes and put it on YouTube

A few days ago, in the combox, I mentioned Cielo Sulla Palude, or “Heaven over the Swamp,” Augusto Genina’s 1949 interpretation of the unfortunately brief life of Maria Goretti. It’s a strange and wonderful film. For one thing, Genino does not romanticize the life of the tenant farmers in the Agro Pontino. If you’re looking for noble savages, look elsewhere. These people are plain and simply screwed — overworked, underfed, and hating each other’s guts more often than not. Harriet Beecher Stowe would have burst through her corset in indignation.

For a treatment of such serious, even gruesome, subjects, the film offers an awful lot of light, slapstick moments. One kid in particular, who couldn’t have been more than three, manages to steal every scene — either by slugging out of someone’s wineskin, or ogling someone’s pinup. If Hal Roach had had any sense, he’d have made him the star of a third-generation Little Rascals series.

The film’s available in its entirety on YouTube. It’s in Italian, which is not so big a deal as you might imagine. The visuals are what make the film; since Genina filled the cast with actual farmers (to whom, I’m assuming, he paid about a lira a day), I get the feeling the dialogue is pretty hokey. By skipping around, you can pick out the good parts.

At 5:16 in this clip, young Spankino squares off with Francesco Tomalillo, who (despite his resemblance to Padre Pio) plays the father of the guy who kills Maria. I’ll leave you to decide who comes off better:

I’ve read that Ines Orsini, the actress who plays Maria, was received by Pope Pius XII in a private audience. His Holiness made her promise only to make films on religious subjects. Good thing he never wrung such a pledge from Jennifer Jones or Ingrid Bergman.

— Max Lindenman

Update: My Patheos colleague Joseph Susanka has sent me a link to his review of Monsieur Vincent, Maurice Cloche’s 1947 biopic of St. Vincent de Paul:

As one of only a half-dozen entries on the Vatican’s “Great Films” list that deals directly with the life of a saint, the film’s artistic merits alone would make it worthy of consideration. Pierre Fresnay’s performance in the title role is unquestionably deserving of the praise it has received over the years, and the film’s spare black-and-white cinematography is the perfect complement to the story’s often traumatic images of poverty and suffering. Yet the film’s spiritual insights are equally noteworthy, its message an implied refutation of the natural human tendency to mystify and dehumanize our heroes.

More Jerome than Thérèse, Monsieur Vincent’s tireless exertions on behalf of his beloved poor are threatened by the sharpness of his tongue for those he sees as obstacles to his important work. When his faithful followers balk at the added burden of caring for Paris’ orphaned infants, Monsieur Vincent lashes out, decrying their unwillingness to give above and beyond what they have already given. “I was a fool,” he says harshly, “to believe I could move your souls; that I could lead you out of your repulsive solitude.” And while it is this very feistiness and singleness of purpose that mark him as the perfect man for the job, his reaction is both unfair and uncharitable. It is, in fact, entirely human.

Therein lies the film’s simplest but most important message: Saints are humans, too. As exemplars of heroic virtue worthy of devotion and emulation, their humanity plays a key role in our ability to recognize their sanctity and to follow it. Saints are important precisely because they share the same frailties and failings as we do, not in spite of them. To see their beatitude as some sort of preternatural condition rather than the fruits of relentless self-mortification and struggle would both diminish their spiritual accomplishments and absolve us from the harsh obligation of following in their footsteps. Their imperfections and mistakes do not reduce their effectiveness as role models; they increase it. As humans, they force us to confront ourselves and do things we’d rather not do, and make changes we’d rather not make.

Saints make life hard. But they also make it clear.

I’m-a see this.

I’ve always wanted to see St. Vincent make a cameo in a Three Musketeers remake. He was very much alive and active in the 1620s, when the story takes place. Like the hero, D’Artangan, he came from Gascony; the two could chat each other up in Occitan, or whatever. Besides, why should Richelieu be the face of the Church?

Speaking of Church figures and cameo appearances, I’ve always imagined the following scene in a movie about Bl. Pope John XXIII:

It’s 1918. Don Roncalli is making his rounds in an Italian army hospital, where he serves as a chaplain. His attention is diverted by the sound of two people speaking English. The pair — a nurse and a patient, a young man with his leg in a cast and a writing pad on his lap — are bantering in a decidedly flirtatious tone.

With an air of amused tolerance, Roncalli interrupts: “Come esta, Signor Tenente Hemingway?”

The young man looks up, a little red faced, and answers, “Bene, Padre. Bene.”

I know it’s a million-to-one shot the two ever met, but it’s nice to imagine they did.

Update: Let’s make this into a round-table discussion: Who deserves a biopic but ain’t got one?