Francis Of Assisi (1961) This one came at the tail end of the ponderous, worshipful Hollywood biblical epics that flourished throughout the 1950's and early 1960's......
What amuses us no end........ that these movies, which so wrapped themselves in simpering, groveling piety, and holier-than-thou reverence, were put together by big studio lizards who'd sell their own grandmothers into slavery if they thought there was a buck in it for them......
Unless you're watching something like "Francis Of Assis" for its unintentional humor, it's an excruciating slog to endure........resembling those 16mm Sunday School films that children were forced to sit through by their unforgiving priests.
The title role went to Bradford Dillman, an actor given to outsized, showy performances and usually cast as villainous, unpleasant characters. To his credit, he controls himself well here, settling into a serene calm to play the 13th century one time Crusader who chose an impoverished life of saintly devotion.......(from the very first frame, the movie hammers home the point that this guy's gonna end up as Saint Francis.)
Right along side him, the luminous 60's starlet Delores Hart plays the noblewoman so enraptured with Francis's faith, she becomes a nun. And in true life-imitates-art style, Hart shortly left Hollywood behind and joined a nunnery for real.......which she now oversees as its Mother Superior.-Hart's brief but shining career as a 50's ingenue made her one our favorites, since unlike the usual platoons of pretty startlets of that era, she possessed genuine acting skills.
And her presence here served as the only reason we suffered through all the heavenly choirs and fall-on-your-knees religiosity that permeates this movie. (In the same way we only stop in to re-watch "Ben Hur" for the sea battle and the chariot race and "Ten Commandments" for the sea parting.)
It is however, if you're up for sampling some Hollywood Bible thumping, a prime example of its genre.
But without Delores Hart (a.k.a. Mother Delores) we wouldn't have gone anywhere near it. 1 star (*)
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