***SPOILERS*** Otto Perminger's three hour extravaganza on the inner workings of the Catholic Church is a bit heavy handed but still worth watching in his star Tom Tryon, as Father Stephen Fermoyle, unique performance in it.
Father Stephen's faith is badly shaken when his sister Mona, Carol Lynley, who's both pregnant out of wedlock and on the brink of death. With only the abortion of her unborn child being able to save her life Stephen chooses the life of the child Rigena who's also played, when she's grown up, by Carol Lynley over that of his sister Mona leaving her to die in childbirth on the hospital operating table. Stephen going by his Catholic ethics has the child saved at the lost of Mona's life and that hunts him for the reminder of the film.
Temporally giving up the priesthood, but not the vows he took , and becoming a teacher in Vienna Stephen meets and falls in love with one of his students Annemarie, Romy Schneide. It's when Annemarie finds out that Stephen is a Catholic Priest she drops his like a hot potato knowing that the church takes precedence over her. It's some time later when Stephen again meets Annamerie she's happily married to banker Kurt Von Hartman, Peter Weck. It's then, March 1938, that the Nazis march into Austria and Kurt, being part-Jewish, jumps to his death, out of his and Annemarie's six floor apartment window, to avoid being arrested and put into a Nazi concentration camp by the dreaded Gestapo.
Annemarie herself is arrested by the Gestapo in her being accused of trying to escape from Nazi controlled Austria which Stephen, if she only asked for his help, could have saved her from. During that same period, the late 1930's, Stephen risks his life by traveling to rural Georgia to help fellow-and black- priest Father Gillis, Ossie Davis who's church was burned down by a bunch of local Klansman.
Being kidnapped and brutally horsewhipped by the hooded Klansman Father Stephen's courage to stand up to them encouraged the local black parishioners to come forward and testify against the head of the Klan in the area that put him behind bars. This, according to the movie, was the first time in the south that a white man was convicted on only the strength of a black man, or black mens, testimony!
Back at the Vatican Father Stephen's boundless courage and convictions for his fellow man has him rise to the point where he's appointed as a Cardinal to the Catholic Church. The movie ends with Father, now Carndial, Stephen telling his audience at the Vatican to follow God's rules and resist the dangers that are now surfacing all over the world in the coming, this is in the early summer of 1939, conflict with Fascism. A warning that was sadly ignored, by the world powers at the times, and that resulted in the biggest and most destructive conflict, WWII, in human history.
P.S Actor Tom Tryon who-as Father Stephen Fermoyle- was told by his superior in the film Cardnal Glennow, John Huston, that he needed to be thought a lesson in humility. Tyron was given that hard lesson by the director of the movie "The Cardinal" Otto Preminger himself. Being constantly yelled and screamed at by the ill tempered and demanding Preminger Tryon needed all the humility he could muster up to be able to finish, and not walk off, the movie set! This in itself showed what an excellent and, in taking all that guff from Preminger, disciplined actor the late Tom Tryon really was!
Father Stephen's faith is badly shaken when his sister Mona, Carol Lynley, who's both pregnant out of wedlock and on the brink of death. With only the abortion of her unborn child being able to save her life Stephen chooses the life of the child Rigena who's also played, when she's grown up, by Carol Lynley over that of his sister Mona leaving her to die in childbirth on the hospital operating table. Stephen going by his Catholic ethics has the child saved at the lost of Mona's life and that hunts him for the reminder of the film.
Temporally giving up the priesthood, but not the vows he took , and becoming a teacher in Vienna Stephen meets and falls in love with one of his students Annemarie, Romy Schneide. It's when Annemarie finds out that Stephen is a Catholic Priest she drops his like a hot potato knowing that the church takes precedence over her. It's some time later when Stephen again meets Annamerie she's happily married to banker Kurt Von Hartman, Peter Weck. It's then, March 1938, that the Nazis march into Austria and Kurt, being part-Jewish, jumps to his death, out of his and Annemarie's six floor apartment window, to avoid being arrested and put into a Nazi concentration camp by the dreaded Gestapo.
Annemarie herself is arrested by the Gestapo in her being accused of trying to escape from Nazi controlled Austria which Stephen, if she only asked for his help, could have saved her from. During that same period, the late 1930's, Stephen risks his life by traveling to rural Georgia to help fellow-and black- priest Father Gillis, Ossie Davis who's church was burned down by a bunch of local Klansman.
Being kidnapped and brutally horsewhipped by the hooded Klansman Father Stephen's courage to stand up to them encouraged the local black parishioners to come forward and testify against the head of the Klan in the area that put him behind bars. This, according to the movie, was the first time in the south that a white man was convicted on only the strength of a black man, or black mens, testimony!
Back at the Vatican Father Stephen's boundless courage and convictions for his fellow man has him rise to the point where he's appointed as a Cardinal to the Catholic Church. The movie ends with Father, now Carndial, Stephen telling his audience at the Vatican to follow God's rules and resist the dangers that are now surfacing all over the world in the coming, this is in the early summer of 1939, conflict with Fascism. A warning that was sadly ignored, by the world powers at the times, and that resulted in the biggest and most destructive conflict, WWII, in human history.
P.S Actor Tom Tryon who-as Father Stephen Fermoyle- was told by his superior in the film Cardnal Glennow, John Huston, that he needed to be thought a lesson in humility. Tyron was given that hard lesson by the director of the movie "The Cardinal" Otto Preminger himself. Being constantly yelled and screamed at by the ill tempered and demanding Preminger Tryon needed all the humility he could muster up to be able to finish, and not walk off, the movie set! This in itself showed what an excellent and, in taking all that guff from Preminger, disciplined actor the late Tom Tryon really was!