Given the current evangelical climate in films, it's easy to forget this little treasure, just like it's easy to forget the republican party used to have a moderate wing.
Peter Marshall was an inclusive kind of Christian, a man whose faith was based on love rather than fear of hellfire. His wife Catherine wrote a warm biography, and 20th adapted it for the screen with a truly brilliant actor in the lead role: Richard Todd. Todd, famous mostly for a few wholesome Disney films (Robin Hood, Sword and the Rose) had the part of his career, and gave the performance of a lifetime. He was Peter Marshall, a Presbyterian minister of the New York Avenue church in Washington, DC during the forties. The heart of the film is the sermon scenes, and they are so good you may want to go to church again.
Why, oh why, hasn't 20th the brains to reissue this one on DVD? Especially now?
Peter Marshall was an inclusive kind of Christian, a man whose faith was based on love rather than fear of hellfire. His wife Catherine wrote a warm biography, and 20th adapted it for the screen with a truly brilliant actor in the lead role: Richard Todd. Todd, famous mostly for a few wholesome Disney films (Robin Hood, Sword and the Rose) had the part of his career, and gave the performance of a lifetime. He was Peter Marshall, a Presbyterian minister of the New York Avenue church in Washington, DC during the forties. The heart of the film is the sermon scenes, and they are so good you may want to go to church again.
Why, oh why, hasn't 20th the brains to reissue this one on DVD? Especially now?