preppy-3 Movie follows the career of Stephen Fermoyle (Tom Tryon) from priest to cardinal. Over the course of a few decades we see him dealing with sex, abortion, segregation, the Ku Klux Klan and Nazis. It also has an all-star cast--Romy Schneider, Carol Lynley, Jill Haworth, John Saxon, Ossie Davis, Dorothy Gish and--best of all--John Huston and Burgess Meredith. It's well-directed by Otto Preminger and looks great...but it's just er good. Two things work against it--at 175 minutes it's far too long and Tryon is absolutely terrible in the title role. I seriously did not know how to take his character at times. Still it's a very good movie and worth a look.

Benedito Dias Rodrigues The Cardinal l'd watched in 1984 on TV,a overlong movie...in that time l didn't have any idea how meaning of the pictures itself...today after a long time l've the opportunity to re-watch this Otto Preminger's unknown movie and After almost three hours long l finally recognized this picture is really amazing...telling a story about a young priest in Boston until a high position in Catholic Church,the movie is showing in flashback since the beginning,all the facts one's most remarkable to me is about the Father Ned Halley played by Burgess Meredith who died in poverty...another was when he has to help a nigro priest in Georgia and has to confront the segregationist system in this town....the story through the time have many faces until the final....once more Otto Preminger proves as one's best directors for all times!!Underrated movie!!Resume:First watch: 1984 / How many: 2 / Source: TV-DVD / Rating: 8.5

dunsuls-1 Perhaps its my age,or maybe the current times,but I hadn't seen this film since its release in 1963 that runs 175 minutes,and what a shame that has been.To be a catholic,what does that mean?I've felt there are many roads to Heaven,but the road you take,stay on it or you surly will get lost.Growing up as a catholic I was always angry that some picked and choose what to believe.be one or not,it's not like going to supermarket and buying only what you like. Eventually I too left the church.Will this re watching make me go back,only God knows.Otto Preminger put together a film based on a novel by Henry Morton Robinson thats challenging,hard and sometimes painful to watch,but in the end,its true to what being a catholic is all about in the modern world.you might even say it foresaw "liberation theology"but in a different way. Today we have a Pope who is from Argentina,we had one from Germany and Poland since this film was made.Very interesting indeed.Now to the picture itself. Tom Tryon ,in by far his greatest performance plays Stephen Fermoyle,who at the films end does become a Cardinal.We open with him before the ceremony and his reflecting back over the years as he left his education at the Vatican with his teacher played by Ral Vallone,now we know why HE played a Pope in Godfather 3,and the steps he took as a irish catholic priest from boston to the Vatican and the many conflicting tests to his faith that he conquered while winning some,and losing other battles along the way.First he's knocked down a bit by a Bishop who sees some of himself in the priest and wants the young priest to be saved from ambition and false pride,played by John Houston,so he sends him to a broken down local parish run by a good humble priest,played by Burgess Meredith,where he proves himself to be unselfish. Then family,sister,played by Carol Lynley, in failed relation with a Jew and then a vaudevillian dancer and final death during child birth. A midlife crisis of life in in the 1920's where on leave as he he's questioning his calling,he falls in love but not with a woman who loves him,Romy Schneider,but back to his own calling. Then conscience,civil race strife in Georgia in the 1930's with Ossie Davis as a young black priest. Finally,the movie began at the dawn of WW1 and it comes full circle to the clouds of WW11 gathering on the Horizon. There are many other fine actors as well,Its a sweeping film that doesn't dodge tough questions but rather lets you focus on what YOU think of your own responsibilities in this life as seen thru the eyes of a man of the cloth who questions and seeks as we do.

dowdosean The stiffness in the telling marks the destiny of this confused tale. At times is quite simply, unendurable. The wooden rigidity of Tom Tryon makes things even harder to take. Unconvincing should be the polite way of putting it. Preminger shows an eye for the travelogue part but a total diffidence in the subject at hand. No feel for it at all. Solemnity shouldn't be the way but it is and a rather phony solemnity at that. At times, they all behave like creatures from another planet and nothing they say or do sounds or looks credible. The over long saga is told in little disjointed episodes, the only thing that remains constant is the inexpressive brow of Mr Tryon. Most of Otto Preminger's opus looks terribly dated now. "The Cardinal" is, perhaps, the most dated. Carol Linley goes from saintly sister to exotic dancer in one single throw and Romy Schnaider has a brief and calculated moment. If I had to save something it would be the scene in which John Huston goes to visit his dying friend Burgess Meredith. But those kind of moments are rare. For some reason that I haven't been able to figure out there is a long musical number by Robert Morse, but as absurd as it was, it came as a welcome change from the agonizing pace the film suffers through its interminable length.