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Customer Reviews of The Cardinal

PRAISE WARNER FOR ANOTHER GORGEOUS TRANSFER!
An intercontinental journey spanning nearly 25 years, "The Cardinal" is a masterfully told saga. Otto Preminger directs with his usual adroit perception of the human condition as he tempts the faith of a Catholic cardinal (Tom Tryon) from Rome to Boston and Vienna. Along the way the film tackles such grandiose social issues as abortion, racism, celibacy and Fascism. Co-star John Huston was Oscar-nominated for his role as the fiery archbishop. Catholic priest, Steven Fermoyle (Tryon) returns to his home from taking his vows to discover that his sister, Mona (Carol Lynley) is in love with a Jewish man who is unwilling to give up his faith and that his brother, Frank (Bill Hayes) has abandoned the priesthood. Mona's obsession to marry leads her to a life of wanton debauchery that results in her death. In the meantime, Cardinal Glennon (John Huston) is determined to drive all of Steven's false pride from his soul. To this end he sends the young novice to work in a forgotten, frozen parish presided over by the Rev. Ned Halley (Burgess Meredith). When Halley dies, Steven is recalled to Rome where he meets a black southern priest, Father Gillis (Ossie Davis) who has come to ask for aid in fighting racism in his parish. The Vatican denies Gillis' request but Steven does indeed quietly take a leave to administer aid to Gillis' parish. He is attacked and brutally beaten by a sect of good ol' boys and nearly dies. The plot, from this point forward is rather rushed, unworthy of Preminger's usually sterling attention to pace. One gets the sense that Preminger would have liked another two or three hours to unfold the remainder of his tale which includes having Stephen return to Rome, then travel to Austria to regain is moral center. There he falls in love with Anna Marie VonHartmann (Romy Schneider) who does not know he is a priest. But Steven returns to his love of God, leaving Anna to marry a resistance operator during WWII in Nazi Germany who, unfortunately is discovered and jumps out a third story window to his death. From there Steven barely escapes Nazi persecution to once again return home to his family. Warner delivers another wonderful transfer. Though the colors have dated somewhat, this 1963 classic sparkles in a nicely balanced transfer. Over all, colors are vibrant. Blacks are deep. Contrast and shadow levels are fully realized. There appears to be little in the way of age related artifacts. Digital anomalies are equally absent. The audio is 5.1 and captures the essence of early stereo recording.
Extras include the masterful feature length documentary on Otto Preminger, a featurette of the same vintage as the film and a theatrical trailer. "The Cardinal" is an unusual religious epic; legitimate and introspective, bold and magnificent. It is a film of great emotional power and quiet, graceful elegance.

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One of Otto Preminger's masterpieces
Otto Preminger was never a director to shy away from controversy. To decide to film Henry Morton Robinson's novel was a stroke of genius. Here is an intelligent movie whose subjects are controversial even today: abortion, racism in America, the Catholic Church's complicity in the rise of Nazism and the challenge of celibacy in today's church. In addition, the story covers the true nature of faith, service and self-sacrifice. The questions posed and answers presented are not easy just like real life. The acting is fine, the photography is beautiful, the music is inspiring and, of course, the direction is impeccable. While Mr. Preminger was never an easy director to work with, especially on this film, the results of his work are always an excellent credit to the actors and the crew. This is definitely one of his best films and one of my favorite films of all time. As one of the other reviewers mentioned, you will not forget this movie. I cannot understand why this film has almost disappeared from sight. And let's not forget that one of those Academy Award nominations was for Best Picture of the Year.

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If Forrest Gump had been a priest, he would be Fr. Fermoyle
Otto Preminger's The Cardinal was a movie that I hadn't seen in 23 years, since April 12, 1981 to be precise. It was a Palm Sunday, the Space Shuttle Columbia had just gone up on her maiden voyage and another good thing happened that day that made it special, but I'll keep that one to myself. Oh, and I watched it in Spanish translation, but still, The Cardinal left a vivid impression on my mind and I never forgot several of the key scenes: Stephen Fermoyle's (Tom Tryon), handling (mishandling?) of her younger sister's out of wedlock pregnancy, his encounter with good ol'e Irish church politics in Boston, his facing-down racism and KKK terrorism in Georgia, his inner vocational struggle, his experience with Nazi Germany and Austrian ecclesiastical stupor in the eve of the unification with the Third Reich.

Heck, if Forrest Gump had been a priest, he would've been Stephen Fermoyle.

The movie is a collection of vignettes in which Father (then Monsignor, then Bishop, then Cardinal) Fermoyle tests his moral certainties against a cast of characters of ambiguous morality. You may even say that everyone else was human but Fermoyle, who always came out as superhuman yet, paradoxically, frail. Each encounter with evil or moral ambiguity taxed Fermoyle's conscience, and yet he manages to come out of all them triumphant, yet wounded. Each encounter leads him inexorably to a promotion.

The picture is beatifully filmed on location, with great attention to meaningful detail. Note who, for example, when Monsignor Fermoy arrives in Georgia to investigate a church burning, as he exits the bus that brought him to town, is debarking through the back door. If you're not really watching, you'll agree that African-Americans in the segregated South were meant to be invisible but if you notice them, then this detail speaks volumes. More significantly, this scene was made wholecloth for the movie by Director Preminger; it wasn't in the original novel written by Henry Morton Robinson. You learn of this on the second DVD of this 2-disk set, which is all dedicated to the Director Preminger's cinematic trajectory.

This is a delightful movie. It brought back to me lots of good memories. And if there's such thing as "holy pride," through its characters and plot, I can say The Cardinal made me feel proud of being a Catholic even though "pride" in other contexts may be a sin.