THE RELUCTANT SAINT (1962)

In an act of pre & post penance (for murder & intimations of lesbianism in WALK ON THE WILD SIDE/’62, and the general sleaze of Harold Robbins’ THE CARPETBAGGERS/’64, his biggest hit), director Edward Dmytryk cleansed his soul with pure uncommercial religiosity in this modest indie on the life & levitation of simpleton Saint Joseph Cupertino.  Beatified for a 17th century miracle which proves something of a metaphor for the film itself, in that it also shouldn’t levitate . . . but does.  One of those movies that works less thru quality than in being all of a piece.  And what actor could ever demur from playing a Holy Fool?  Certainly not Maximilian Schell, with that granite jaw & authoritarian bearing, he rarely got a shot at the humble-pie roles he truly longed for.*  Well shot on Italian locations by undersung cinematographer C.M. Pennington-Richards (the rest of the crew largely Italian, including composer Nino Rota), Dmytryk doesn’t push either his fine cast or the miraculous moments at us.  The scenes of levitation done as simply as possible (as if filmed in 1922), with any real miracles stemming from Akim Tamiroff pulling off an impossible role as the Vicar who sees the spirituality behind Joseph’s peasant beliefs & goodness, and from Lea Padovani’s OTT mother, always greeting her son with a slap in the face straight out of some endlessly touring vaudeville act.  It takes a reel or two to adjust to the film’s unusual wavelength (are they being serious? . . . they are!), but since the filmmakers seem to go thru the same adjustment, you & they catch on to the film’s tone of light-comic sincerity at more or less the same time.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  *This and his quiet turn as a small cog in the Nazi resistance movement in Fred Zinnemann’s JULIA/’77 were Schell’s favorite roles.  He’s better, far more subtle there.  (Just watch him go thru a poached egg, a modest ‘privileged’ moment in film.)  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2018/06/julia-1977.html

READ ALL ABOUT IT: In IT’S A HELL OF A LIFE, BUT NOT A BAD LIVING, Dmytryk notes that while he never met anyone who didn’t like the film, no one could figure out how to get people to see it.