THE SHOES OF THE FISHERMAN are more like lead weights in the handsome but laborious 1968 drama set in what was then the near-future of the 1980s. Expensively produced, with a stolid cast of pros, it takes 162 minutes to trace Morris West’s novel, 1963’s #1 best seller that ran off 6,000,000 copies. The screenplay was done by John Patrick and James Kennaway; author West and James Poe also worked on it, but received no credit. Michael Anderson directed on location in Rome and Finland.

After 20 years in a Siberian labor camp, ‘Kiril Lakota’ (Anthony Quinn), the Metropolitan Archbishop of Lviv (in Soviet Ukraine), is released, and whisked off to Rome, where the Pope is dying. The USSR Premiere (Laurence Olivier, in one of his numerous ‘powerful man’ roles) gambles that the respected clergyman will be selected for the Catholic Church’s top job, and as such may use his influence to broker a peaceful solution to a Red Chinese famine crisis that is close to sparking World War Three. Can’t wait for America to mess things up?

Nearly an hour in, the Latin words “extra omnes” (‘beyond all’) are intoned, provoking a chuckle since it comes off as “extra ominous”, an unintended opening for snarkasm that’s about the only viewer-inserted relief to the good-looking (thank Erwin Hillier’s cinematography), well-acted but hopelessly fanciful pageant of pop pedagogy. It’s sorely tempting to be a spoiler (Hades heat awaits) about the finale, but suffice to say it ends in wish-fulfillment greater than your prayers for winning Powerball. Weighted down by solemnity (processional pomp that may placate the devoted but puts we heretics into narcolepsy), and dogged by a boring and extraneous sub-plot involving a journalist (David Janssen, in typical nerve-jangled mumble mode), it led critics to confess the sin of boredom. Landing 68th in ’68 the box office was faith-shaking at $4,600,000, since the production tab was possibly $9,000,000. A staggered MGM monolith (at the same time reeling from the polar plop of Ice Station Zebra) was barely rescued by the grosses of the 2001: A Space Odyssey, the awe and mystery of the heavens (darn science included) trumping the blah of earthbound theological babbles. *

Back on self-sanctified Terra Catholica, most of the cast offer committed work. Quinn is fine, given a rare chance to play someone humble: that same year he played an outlaw posing as a priest in the epic Mexican-set western Guns For San Sebastian, a more exciting prospect than this molasses-paced talkathon. Olivier’s brief scenes are put over with subtlety and there moments of pro sincerity delivered by the garb-laden visages of Vittorio De Sica, Leo McKern, and John Gielgud in a prestige die-on as the expiring Pontiff.

Best of all is Oskar Werner, in a subplot about a priest whose writings are ‘unorthodox’ ,therefore threatening, possibly God forbid, ‘blasphemous’—as in attuned to the 20th Century instead of the 13th. Werner brings his usual disarming intensity, tightly compressed passion and self-effacing dignity: this much-missed actor gives the movie some semblance of spirit.

“The dying is easy. It is the living that defeats us.”

When Academy Award time came around it was reflexively nominated for Alex North’s okay score and the well-crafted Art Direction—they had to recreate the Sistine Chapel since they couldn’t shoot in the Vatican.

With Barbara Jefford, Rosemary Dexter, Burt Kwouk (angry ‘Chairman Peng’—Mao had another six years to scare us with), Clive Revill, Frank Finlay, Niall MacGinnis, Leopoldo Trieste, Isa Miranda and Marne Maitland.

* Ah, films “of faith”. Even those of us who don’t buy the idea of bearded pies in the sky (especially when shouted from mere earthlings who, y’know, rob the poor, treat women like breeding slaves, provide cover for industrial-scale child molestation and threaten to kill you if you disagree) can enjoy and be moved by affecting stories of decent true believers and their trials. Save your scorn, drop those rocks and doff the holy headgear of your choice to The Song Of Bernadette, Black Narcissus, Joan Of Arc, A Man For All Seasons, Becket, Hawaii, Major Barbara, The Nun’s Story, The Devil At 4 O’Clock (the look on Spencer Tracy’s face at the finale), The Keys Of The Kingdom, Quo Vadis, Doubt, A Hidden Life…