The Cardinal

Interminable trials of an Irish-American boy from seminary to cardinal's hat, taking in some twenty years of history and every problem known to Catholic conscience, from religious intermarriage and abortion to the Ku Klux Klan and the Nazi menace by way of the role of the Man of God. Risible script based on a doorstop novel by Henry Morton Robinson, but handled by Preminger with tremendous panache; worth seeing just for the incredible skill and flair with which he stages the action and moves the camera.