THE FUGITIVE with Henry Fonda - a John Ford film about the brutal repression of the Church in Mexico (would make a good double bill with FOR GREATER GLORY.) Beautifully photographed in black and white. Fonda plays a priest on the run from the repressive authorities, torn between his desire to serve the people and God and his desire for self-preservation. Based on a Graham Greene novel.
THE DETECTIVE with Alec Guinness as G.K. Chesterton’s crime solving priest, Father Brown. This film led to Guinness’s conversion to the Catholic faith - he was so impressed with a young French boy’s happy reaction to him in clerical costume that he wondered what kind of faith would lead to such joy, and began to investigate the Catholic faith. This is not easy to find, but as (I think) it has fallen out of copyright, it is available for viewing on YouTube in its entirety. Fun adaptation
DIARY OF A CITY PRIEST - David Morse plays a priest who accepts a transfer to an inner-city parish (based on a memoir). No big drama, the film follows the day-in, day-out life of his parish and parishioners. Quietly moving, and Morse is, as usual, very good.
MILLIONS - a young Catholic boy in England who is fascinated with an old book of the lives of the saints finds a lost bag of the proceeds from a train robbery, and with his older brother tries to decide how to use the money to do good, while the robber tries to find him. The saints from his book (St. Francis, St. Theresa, the Ugandan Martyrs, St. Nicholas, St. Joseph, St. Peter) appear to offer him solace and advice. A couple of theological missteps in the script and one or two issues that would be inappropriate for younger children (as when he finds his widowed father in bed with a girlfriend), but very enjoyable and very touching in parts as he asks each saint if they know his deceased mother.
