Der Kardinal

I don't care if anyone believes this but I was actually "attracted" to this film via its incredible, grandiose and very emotional soundtrack which I heard on a Frank Chacksfield Cd ! I thought, with an incredible score like that, the film just cannot be bad ! Might sound stupid, but there it is ! So I found this on a DVD from the USA - very nicely presented in colorful red packaging together with a bonus DVD about the life of O Preminger !

In fact, I did enjoy the film quite a lot ! Excellent picture quality and reasonable sound. Being a Roman Catholic, and always educated in catholic schools, jesuits and De La Salle Brothers, having often attended Holy Mass, I felt, on watching this film to be on familiar ground, so to speak. I thought the film illustrated well certain contradictions within the church, notably of course with regards to "racism" and the "Nazis" in the World War II where its rôle seemed to have been ambiguous to say the least.

I am one of those people who believed that the doctrines of religion have been fixed by God for eternity - you must either accept them as they are or reject them - no one said it would be easy, for this reason I believe that you can not and must not modify religious doctrine to suit the fashion at a given moment in time. If you cannot accept the church's position on one or other point, then you are perfectly free to refuse the Church, the time of the Inquisition is long past, but you certainly should not try to change the doctrine of the Church to suit your own particular views. Only God can do that ! For this reason I agree with the reaction of Fermoyle confronted with various "crucial" situations .... abortion, inter-faith marriage, racism, Nazism etc etc. Sometimes unpopular stances have to be taken and it is good to see Fermoyle have the courage of his convictions even if we do see at times that he is no more than a human being who has doubts about what he is doing and his own weaknesses.

The film is a series of very intense episodes, each one being good to watch but the linking together of them not very smooth, just as you're getting involved in one of these, begorrah ! You're whisked onto the next one without knowing really how the one before resolved itself.

I had never heard of the actor Tom Tryon ! He was not bad but I think the part could have been played better by certain other more well known actors. Tryon had a good, powerful and imposing physique but in some scenes he appears rather emotionless or should I say not emotional enough.

The film is pretty long, there's an intermission which allows the spectator to take a breather,and I found the second part a bit more interesting and intense than the first. That said, the film doubtlessly needs several viewings to be fully appreciated. There are other intense moments, where Fermoyle has to choose between permitting the life of his sister or that of her child-to-be but not both of them, an extremely painful decision for anyone to have to make, also his priest friend who is dying of multiple sclerosis. I was reading the other comments about this film and one of them was limited to the episode of ROmy Schneider's husband who had been sitting at table one minute, hears the Gestapo comes, and in one-and-a-half shakes of a duck's tail, has precipitated himself out of the window to his death on the street below ! It's true that you don't see it coming and remain flabbergasted because it all takes place so quickly. Funny, though that that particular episode should have marked the commentator to such a point that it was the only detail of the film that he/she wrote about !

Another extremely emotional scene is when Fermoyle journeys to Georgia USA at the request of a black priest whose church has been burned down by KKK extremists. He takes a very strong stand against this and pays for it by being whipped by the KKK. A few hours later, one of those who has participated in the whipping ( the harmonica player ) comes back and helps him up ! Although Fermoyle realizes that he was one of the evil-doers, he just gives him a pat on the back and walks off with him. It's a difficult and very uncomfortable scene to bear. I could not forgive a man who had done that to me !

The scene in Vienna where the church singers are bothered by a band of marauding Nazis is extremely intense violent and uncomfortable for the spectator ... the way those Nazis just smash their way into the church building ...... Fermoyle manages to escape via a secret passage to the church crypt .

suddenly it just fades away and we jump forward in time. It was a little frustrating as that was the end of the film. I was surprised to see Romy Schneider in this film, I have seen her often in French and German films but did not know she had starred in American ones. She was very beautiful but her rôle was pretty limited. Perhaps a little more passion between her and Fermoyle would have added some spice to the story ......... never mind !

To conclude then, a fairly long film with intense moments. I'm absolutely not sure whether today many people would like it as unfortunately religion seems to be declining in Western society. But to those people who are religious or have an association with religion or concerned about its development, it is sure to have a certain interest and relevance.

This one holds up extremely well. It's a real shame it seems to have fallen into public domaine, judging the poor quality tapes around. Some are at SLP and look terrible! In addition, Premminger used the wide screen Panavision lensing to greatly enhance the look, and much of this is lost in watching it pan&scan. There was a Laser Disc release on this one, which included the oveture, intermission, and E'trac music before part two. I originally saw this at the (now gone) Woods Theatre in downtown Chicago first run in 70mm. But I believe they ran it without an intermission. A number of 16mm IB Technicolor prints exist on THE CARDINAL, both in the Scope and masked (letterbox) format to preserve the full picture image. It's a matter of who HAS a print! The only theatrical trailer released was a GREAT 10 minute featurette in IB Technicolor & Scope with many behind the scenes shots of camera set-ups shootingin various locations. And there are several deleted from the final release scenes as well. Romy Schneider is one of my all time favorite actresses. She looks so BEAUTIFUL in this movie! One can only hope and pray that this one day winds up on DVD!! OR... how about someone coming up with the money to restore it for theatres?? I'll do the restoration if you come up with the money.

The Cardinal is a historically significant film because of what was happening in the Roman Catholic Church at the time it premiered -- the Second Vatican Council. Called by Pope John XXVIII to bring about reforms in the Church, many of the issues touched upon in the film -- the liturgy, the role of lay persons and women in the Church, rights of the mother vs. the child, mixed marriage, ecumenism -- were being hotly debated by the bishops in Rome. The film added to that debate among ordinary Catholics.

I was a student at a Catholic high school in 1963. To many of us who hoped to see significant and even radical changes toward a more modern Church, the Cardinal dramatized many of the problems that we believed needed correcting. The Second Vatican Council didn't go as far as some of us would like, and the Church hasn't seen much reform since, but when I see the Cardinal today, I'm reminded how much more confining Church doctrine was before the Council did its work.

By the way, in response to the comment that no one could have done all the things that the Cardinal was portrayed as doing in the film, my understanding is that the story is based on the life of Cardinal Spellman of New York. The details are changed, but in fact Cardinal Spellman was from Boston and did undertake many of the same roles in his career, including working as a Vatican diplomat from 1925-1932.

TOM TRYON has the central role in Otto Preminger's majestic looking film version of THE CARDINAL, but he's one of those handsome actors with an impassive face whose emotions never come to the surface. Instead, we get a hint of what he might be thinking without any real clue. And since the film is all about the moral and personal issues facing him as he enters the College of Cardinals, an actor with more emotional capabilities would have been more impressive.

The other flaw is the three hour length for a film in which the story is simply not that compelling. Furthermore, director Preminger has chosen to direct whole scenes at medium length lensing (no close-ups inserted) which gives a flat affect to the dynamics involved.

Aside from these weaknesses, the film has a lot about it to commend. All the interiors of church activities are impressively staged and photographed in beautiful WideScreen photography. The performances around Tryon range from good to excellent, including John Huston, Carol Lynley, Bill Hayes, John Saxon and Burgess Meredith. Huston is particularly commanding as the brusque Cardinal Glennon, who confronts Tryon with: "You're not afraid of me, are you?" when the young man speaks his mind.

All of the technical aspects of the film are professional, giving the story more credibility than it deserves from a rather lumbering script. The icing on the cake is the rich musical score by Jerome Moross.

Holds the interest despite the length as it deals with a young man confronting bigotry, Naziism, and his own personal beliefs as he ascends the ladder of success in the Catholic Church.

Tom Tryon is one of the better but less appreciated actors of the '50s and '60s when mature top stars were the likes of Rock Hudson. Tryon, however, is not only an excellent actor but a good writer as well with a number of books to his name just like Sterling Hayden, another almost forgotten actor of the period.

This movie should be required viewing in Moral Theology as it provides guidance on how a serious practicing Catholic should act when faced with moral dilemmas. With the current moral divide on the question of abortion, I am reminded of that crucial scene in the movie when the character portrayed by Tryon had to decide on what medical procedure to choose in the case of an emergency arising out of a childbirth gone awry. He was the nearest of kin of the woman involved and the doctors advised him that there was a choice as to whether to abort the baby (by crushing its head with forceps) or let the childbirth proceed in which case the mother's life would be compromised. In such cases, Catholic morality requires that the best effort should be made to save both infant and mother but in no case may an intervention be made to kill either one of them.