Films We Never Got to Review

MINOR REGRETS AT THE END OF A BLOG

When this blog was just beginning, my friend, Tim Stafford, told me he didn't think the blog go last very long. "After all," he asked, "how many movies are there about churches and pastors?"

It's seven years later, and we've looked at a different film every week. There were a few weeks we ran a repeat, but there were quite a few weeks when we discussed more than one movie. That means we’ve looked at more than 350 films, and we still haven’t run out of films to review. I have a list with nearly 300 potential films, and assuming churches keep showing up in new movies -- I think I already have enough to write about for another seven years. But I'm tired and ready to move on to other projects.

You have to pull the plug sometime, but nonetheless, I regret not having a chance to review some great films that had interesting things to say about faith. Some of the films on this list are pretty awful, but still have interesting things to write about. 

Some of the movies on this list are ones I haven't seen, but they might have interesting things to say. 
There are also films that deal with topics that we rarely touched on.

So these are twelve of the films I most regret not getting around to writing about.

12) Fiddler on the Roof (1971)

I've seen this film more than once, and I like it very much. We've looked at musicals (Sound of Music, Cabin in the Sky, Sister Act) but Fiddler would have been the first musical featuring Eastern Orthodox clergy. There haven’t been many films featuring Orthodox clergy -- the only one I can think of is the Mel Brooks comedy, The Twelve Chairs. I could also have written about Andrei Rublev, a painter of icons used for Orthodox worship, or Beyond the Hills about a Romanian Orthodox Covent, but really, I just wish I'd taken the opportunity to drag the priests in Fiddler over the coals for the way they treated Tevye. 

11) The Quick and the Dead (1995) 

I really enjoyed this Sam Rami western, and I would have liked to write about Russell Crowe’s haunted pastor with a history as a desperado. I would have been happy to have an excuse to watch this again. Most of the westerns I’ve written about haven’t been good westerns (we did get to watch the classic High Noon, but most have been along the lines of The Deadly Companions and God’s Gun). It might have also been fun to get to Charleton Heston’s Will Penny in which Donald Pleasence plays a very creepy, evil preacher.

10) The Exorcist 2: The Heretic (1977) 

It really is a shame I couldn't write about this film, since we reviewed the clergy in the original Exorcist. I have read about this film for a long time, starting with Michael Medved’s Golden Turkey Awards (a salute to bad films), but I’ve never seen it. It really is a shame I couldn’t get to Exorcist 2, since we did review the original Exorcist as well as the second sequel. The Heretic stars Richard Burton in a performance legendary for hamminess. Instead, I've settled for the hammy Burton performances in The Sandpiper and The Robe.(FWIW, another bad film I didn’t write about was God’s Not Dead Part IV: We the People. I watched it in the theater, but never got around to writing about it, though we featured the first three God's Not Dead movies.)

9) Lady Godiva of Coventry (1955) - Please don’t assume it is prurient interests that drew me to curiosity about this film (which I’ve never seen). In all the pictures of Maureen O’Hara as the historical streaker, she seems to be surrounded by nuns. All right. I am curious how the filmmakers handled the nudity in studio days with the Hays Code in full effect. (The Song of Bernadette is another faith-centered story from the golden age of Hollywood. It was quite acclaimed. I’ve never seen it, but it looks rather stodgy, and that's kept me from watching it.)

8) The Devils (1971) 

In the blog, we've tried not to shy away from films that are critical of churches and clergy or even the Christian faith. As a result, we’ve looked at films by famous critics of religion like Michael Tolkin and Luis Buñuel. This notorious “historical” work by writer/director Ken Russell (from a story by Aldous Huxley) is one I never got around to watching. It's difficult to find an unedited version of this X-rated film in which Oliver Reed played a priest with unorthodox views on faith and sex whose followers included licentious nuns. But it was not to be.

7) Ganja & Hess (1973) 

Arguably, this blog didn't cover enough vampire blaxsploitation films, and this movie would have helped remedy that oversight. Sadly, this film was also difficult to find in its original form. (Fun fact: Duane Jones's only other starring performance is in Night of the Living Dead.) The Church seems to play an important part in the battle against dark forces, so I do need to get around to watching this sometime even if I don’t have anywhere to write about it.

6) The Miracle Woman (1931)

This is yet another tough film to track down, with one of my favorite directors (Frank Capra), and starring one of my favorite actresses (Barbara Stanwyck). I'm baffled to realize that we haven’t featured any films by Capra or Stanwyck. Though I haven't seen this film, in it, Barbara becomes disillusioned with the Church and takes up a career as a fraudulent evangelist. Pre-Hays Code films like this one had much more freedom to be critical of the Church. I will manage to write about this one someday, even without this blog as a vehicle.

5) Dogma (1999) 

I have seen this Kevin Smith satire of the Roman Catholic Church and angels and demons that was condemned by the Church even before it was released. While I have grave reservations about the theology in the film, at times it's quite funny and would have been interesting to write about.

4) Au Hasard Balthazar (1966) 

Robert Bresson was one of France’s greatest directors, and I was able to review his classic, Diary of a Country Priest. This film contains just a little about church and clergy. Others of his work, such as Angels of Sin (about a convent that rehabilitates convicts) or The Trial of Joan of Arc. Au Hasard Balthazar is Bresson’s only film (and perhaps the only film of any kind) that features the baptism of a donkey.

3) Les Miserables (1935, 1952, 1998, 2012, or any of the other versions)

There are many adaptations of this Victor Hugo film, but I didn’t get to any of them. This is too bad, because Bishop Myriel, who cares for Jean Valjean, is one of the best portrayals of clergy in literature and cinema.

2) The Name of the Rose (1986) 

I’ve read Umberto Eco’s novel, but I’ve never seen this adaptation of the book, and it’s hard to track down. It’s a retelling of a Sherlock Holmes story using Franciscan monks in a medieval abbey. It stars Sean Connery as a friar, William of Baskerville. It also stars Christian Slater and we at Movie Churches do love Christian Slater films (the good and the awful.)

1) Amazing Grace (2006) 

I saw this film and like it very much. Directed by Michael Apted, it tells the true story of William Wilberforce and his campaign against England's slave trade. Wilberforce's pastor was John Newton, the former slave trader and author of the hymn “Amazing Grace.” He definitely would have received our highest Movie Churches rating of Four Steeples.

If only I could have gotten to these dozen films. And maybe, St. Benny the Dip. And…

Movie Churches European Tour: First Stop Ireland

Darby O'Gill and the Little People (1959)

Directed by Robert Stevenson

Our first stop on this month’s European Vacation is the Emerald Isle which is appropriate, as I am writing from the Emerald City, Seattle.

There's an acknowledgment in the credits of today's movie: "My thanks to King Brian of Knocknasheega and his Leprechauns, whose gracious co-operation made this picture possible. -- Walt Disney." Because this is Movie Churches, we wonder, why no thanks to the priests in the film?

Of course, many people who viewed this Disney live-action classic in their childhood might not ever remember there was a priest in the film. I know I didn’t.

I do have a distinct memory of watching this as a kid. It was made before I was born, but Disney regularly re-released their favorites, and this played at the Park Cinema in Santa Rosa, CA. I went on a Saturday afternoon, and there was a big crowd of kids, and it was raining hard. There was an announcement that the show was sold out followed immediately by an announcement that they would be showing the movie in the second theater. Apparently, they opened the second theater just for Darby, and they moved the reels from one projector to the other. This stuck with me.

What also stuck with me? The banshee, the angel of death, scared the heck out of little me. But the priest? I completely forgot about him.)

Darby O’Gill and the Little People tells of Darby O'Gill (Albert Sharpe), the elderly caretaker of a lord’s estate in a small Irish town. He is a great storyteller whose favorite topic is his adventures with the leprechauns. Darby has a grown daughter pursued by two suitors; Pony (Kieron Moore), a local bully, and Michael McBride (Sean Connery), the man sent to replace Darby as the caretaker. (It is said Connery's role in this film helped him be cast as James Bond.)

I really didn’t care too much about the love triangle as a kid. What I enjoyed back in the day was Darby’s battle of wits with Brian (Jimmy O’Dea), the legendary king of the leprechauns, for three wishes. While telling stories in the local bar, Darby recalls a time when he captured King Brian. When the king tried to wriggle out of granting Darby's wish, Darby warned him, “You give [my wishes] to me or you’ll answer to the church, I’ll have Father Murphy curse you with a blessing that will shrivel you up.” But still, Darby admits that King Brian escaped and didn’t grant his wishes.

While Darby is telling one of his stories in the local pub, Father Murphy enters. The priest apologizes for his arrival, “I didn’t want to interrupt, I just dropped in to tell you the news. My friend Father O’Leary in the town of Glencove has a new bell that was given to him by a lord. They will give the old bell to us. There will be a chapel bell in our town at last. All we have to do is go after it. Now, if I had a horse, which I haven’t, I’d go for it meself, which I won’t, but I thought that perhaps there might be someone here with a horse and cart who’d like to go for the bell.”

Pony first volunteers to get the bell, for a price. “Two pounds, ten bob,” he says. 

The priest agrees it's a fair price, just more money than he has. The priest makes a counteroffer for carrying the bell, “A chore like that might even be enough to absolve a man for using the priest and a church against the powers of darkness for his own selfish ends.”

This offer captures Darby’s attention. “I’ll do it, Father, I’ll do it for nothing." 

But Father Murphy tells him, “No, Darby, it won’t be for nothing. As a reward, you may have the music of the bell… For your seed, breed, and generation till the end of time.”

Darby does indeed find great joy in listening to the bell. When Darby captures King Brian again, on a Sunday, the king urges him to hastily make his wishes. Darby resists because of the chiming, “The bell, listen to the music of it. Father Murphy gave it to me. Would I make the wish on a Sunday with Father Murphy pulling the bell? Listen to the music.” It turns out for the best that Darby waits.

It turns out that he needs his wish when his daughter Katie is at death’s door; Father Murphy comes to read her the last rites, but because of Darby’s wish, those rites aren’t necessary.

Throughout the film, there seems to be a silent struggle between supernatural forces: the underworld of the leprechauns versus Father Murphy’s Heaven. There’s nothing really wrong with the powers the priest represents, they just aren’t as interesting (in the film, anyway) as the powers King Brian represents.

But we’ll still give Father Murphy a Three Steeple rating if just for the music of the bell.

Robin Hood Month Concludes with "Hood...Robin Hood"

Robin and Marian (1976)
As we conclude Robin Hood Month at Movie Churches, I realized we probably should have called it Friar Tuck Month. After all, he’s the main clergy in these films, and he’s gotten the bulk of our attention. Tuck is in this film, too, but in Robin and Marian, the most important member of the clergy is in the title.

This version is directed by Richard Lester (A Hard Day’s Night and Superman II) and written by James Goldman (The Lion in Winter), the brother of the recently departed William Goldman. (The Goldman brothers went to high school with my father-in-law in Highland Park, Illinois, though I suppose this is interesting only to a small portion of our readership. It’s a very important portion.)

It also features stars that outshine most other actors in these roles, with Sean Connery as Robin and Audrey Hepburn as Marian. (They’re rivaled only by the stars in the best version of Robin Hood: Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland. Sorry Kevin and Mary Elizabeth. Sorry Russell and Cate. Not sorry Taron and Eve.) Previous versions told stories of the origins of Robin Hood. This is the only version I know of that tells the end of the Robin Hood story.

As the film begins, Robin is an old man returning from the Crusades (Connery was 46 at the time). On the journey home, King Richard (Richard Harris) is killed during an attack on a castle, so Robin and Little John (Nicol Williamson) leave the army and return to Sherwood Forest where they are welcomed by Friar Tuck (Ronnie Barker) and Will Scarlet (Denholm Elliott). To make a living, Friar Tuck has been taking confessions from the faithful while Will steals their horses. Robin is amused to learn that in his absence he’s become a legend. Robin asks what has become of his young love, Maid Marian, and is shocked to learn she is the abbess of the Kirkley Abbey. Marian has been a nun for eighteen years, caring for the poor and sick.

King John (Ian Holm), now the monarch, is in conflict with the Roman Catholic Church and has ordered the expulsion of all the senior clergy from the land. Under these orders, the Sheriff of Nottingham (Robert Shaw) is sent to arrest Marian. Robin learns of these orders and goes to rescue his former love, but Marian wants none of it.

When he arrives, she asks, “What the hell are you doing here?” He says he’s come to rescue her, but she replies, “It’s Mother Jennett now, and you can march back to Israel.” When Robin insists she needs his help, she responds, “God will be with us.”

Robin says, “He was with us in the Crusades, and He didn’t do much good there.”

As Robin leaves, Marian mutters, “Damn that man.”

Robin doesn’t follow Marian’s instructions but instead battles the sheriff when he comes to arrest Marian. When Marian insists she wants to surrender herself peaceably, Robin knocks her unconscious. Violence ensues between Robin and the sheriff, of course -- the very reason Marian didn’t want Robin to get involved.

Robin retreats to the forest, with his men and the nuns. And Marian. Marian and Robin’s romance resumes; they take long walks in the woods and make love in the fields, but Marian wants Robin to cease his battle with the sheriff. She threatens to leave Robin.

But a man’s got to do what a man’s got to do, so Robin agrees to fight the sheriff one on one in the field outside the forest. Robin kills the Sheriff but is himself mortally wounded.

Robin is brought to Marian at the abbey, where she gives him medicine which relieves his pain. After a moment, Robin realizes she’d actually given him poison knowing he wouldn’t recover from his wounds. And she takes the poison herself.

She tells Robin, “I love you. More than all you know. I love you more than children. More than fields I've planted with my hands. I love you more than morning prayers or peace or food to eat. I love you more than sunlight, more than flesh or joy, or one more day. I love you...more than God.”

Marian as a nun had been doing pretty well in the Movie Church Steeple rankings up until that moment. Sure, she had slept with Robin, but she helped the sick and tried to prevent violence. But this little speech is in direct contradiction to the words of Jesus (from the Message paraphrase), “Anyone who comes to me but refuses to let go of father, mother, spouse, children, brothers, sisters, yes, even one’s self, can’t be my disciple.” Some may find Marian’s words romantic, but it brings her Steeple rating down to two of the possible four.

Illinois Movies on the Small Screen

Not only are there too many Illinois films to cover in one post, there are too many films made in the city of Chicago to cover. Perhaps only New York City has been the location of more films than Chicago, but since one of our goals this year is to visit a bar in every state, we thought we’d remember a time in our nation when such a task would have been more difficult and far less legal. We’re limiting our films to those set in the Prohibition Era in Chicago. And there are plenty.

Brian DePalma’s 1987 film, The Untouchables, is really based more on the popular TV show than the true story of Treasury Agent Eliot Ness’ battle against bootlegger Al Capone. If someone doesn’t mind how the film strays a bit from the truth (Ness didn’t cold bloodedly kill Frank Netti, who lived on in Chicago for years after Ness left), this is a rousing film, an urban Western. Kevin Costner is great as Ness, as is Robert DeNiro as Capone, but it was Sean Connery who won an Oscar for playing a fictitious policeman. David Mamet wrote a screenplay full of memorable lines and interactions. Ennio Morricone’s score is stirring and similar to his music for spaghetti Westerns. But best of all is DePalma’s direction of a number of memorable set pieces including a wonderful steal of Sergei Eisenstein’s staircase montage from Battleship Potemkin.

There are even some Movie Church connections in the film. Connery’s famous “Chicago Way” speech to Costner takes place in a church (the one place that seems free from the city’s corruption). Connery’s cop, Jimmy Malone, keeps a St. Jude medal to honor the saint of lost causes and policemen. We get to see Ness with his little girl saying her bedtime prayers. And there are, of course, the wise words of Eliot Ness: “Let’s do some good!”

Capone’s Chicago days have provided material for a number of films. In 1959’s Al Capone, the gangster was played by Rod Steiger (if you were a member of our household, you would remember him as the protagonist of the film Oklahoma). In 1975’s Capone, Ben Gazzara played the famous thug. An unusual choice in making that film was also showing Capone in the years following his imprisonment.

In 1967’s The Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre, Jason Robards played Capone in a film which focused on Al’s slaughter of the Bugs Moran gang on the day that is supposed to be all about love. That awful event is recreated in a very different setting in Billy Wilder’s classic 1959 comedy, Some Like It Hot, in which musicians Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis witness the killings and go into hiding as members of an all girls band.

Sometimes pseudonyms were used for a Capone-like character. The mobster was still alive in 1932 when Howard Hawks made Scarface. “Scarface” was a nickname for Capone, but Paul Muni plays a character named “Tony.” The film is set in Chicago, but when the film was remade in 1983, Brian De Palma used Florida as the setting and made it about the prohibition of drugs rather than alcohol.

Two classic gangster films were made the year before the first Scarface which were also set in the Windy City: Little Caesar, launching the career of Edward G. Robinson; and The Public Enemy, which was Jimmy Cagney’s big break. All three of these films were very popular -- but also were considered very violent. There was a concern in the government, the press, and the church that these films glorified the life of the gangster. Along with the early Universal horror films, these helped usher in the censorship of the Hayes Code.

The gangster life during those prohibition years in Chicago has continued to be a popular theme. In 2002’s Road to Perdition, Tom Hanks and Paul Newman played hoods in a story based on a graphic novel. Perhaps the strangest film of all time set in this place and era is 1976’s G-rated musical, Bugsy Malone. All of the roles, including the gangsters and molls, are played by child actors (such as Scott Baio and Jodie Foster). To keep that G rating, the guns in the film shoot whipped cream instead of bullets.

A couple of other films set in the time of prohibition are not about gangsters, but are still about criminals. 2002’s Oscar winner for Best Picture, Chicago, is about murderesses in the early 1920’s who were heroines in the tabloid press. The movie musical was based on a Bob Fosse musical and won five additional Oscars, including Best Supporting Actress for Catherine Zeta-Jones.

But the story told in that musical had been told on the screen before. In 1942, Ginger Rogers played Roxie Hart in a film that featured her trial on the charge of murder. Because of the Hayes Code brought about by those gangster films, a movie couldn’t portray someone getting away with murder. So Roxie, in the film, was innocent. We sometimes think of the past as a more innocent time…but Prohibition Era Chicago…not so much.