Writer: Robert Dozier (screenplay), Henry Morton Robinson (novel)
Stars: Tom Tryon, John Huston, Carol Lynley, Dorothy Gish
The Cardinal is quite the epic film. At over 3 hours long, it skims through controversial topics such as: sex before marriage, abortion, crisis of faith, racism, and the rise of the Nazi's. It just drags and drags. Nothing of any importance happens at all in the first hour, where they mainly talk of uninteresting things with very little substance. The 5 topics mentioned above were all crammed into the tiny 2 hour space, where they half-assed it and barely skimmed the surface of the issues they raise. I don't know how anyone could have thought this was a good idea, unless they wanted it to be an exploitation film that convinces people that Catholicism is the divine path to righteousness.
