The Cardinal
Short description
The Cardinal follows Stephen Fermoyle, a young priest from Boston, from his ordination in Rome in 1917 through his rise in the Catholic Church to the rank of cardinal in 1939. Along the way he faces difficult and dangerous situations, including the Nazi takeover of Austria, and struggles with personal conflicts that test his vocation.
Otto Preminger directed and produced the film, made between Advise & Consent and In Harm's Way as the thirteenth of the sixteen features he directed. Robert Dozier and Ring Lardner, Jr. wrote the screenplay. Tom Tryon plays Stephen Fermoyle, with Romy Schneider as Annemarie von Hartman, John Huston as Cardinal Glennon, Carol Lynley as Stephen's sister Mona, Dorothy Gish as Celia Fermoyle and Maggie McNamara as Florrie Fermoyle, among a credited cast of twenty-six.
Released by Columbia Pictures in December 1963, the film runs 185 minutes and took about 11 million dollars worldwide. Its scale and length reflect a prestige production of the period. On IMDb it holds a rating of 6.8 from around 3,200 votes, while on TMDB it has a rating of 6.5 from a much smaller number of 54 votes, indicating a modest and somewhat mixed level of approval rather than broad acclaim.
What's left behind the scenes
- Once during filming, director and producer Otto Preminger simply fired Tom Tryon, who played Stephen Fermoyle. This happened on the very day Tryon's parents had come to visit their son and watch the filming. Preminger, known for his harsh treatment of actors, rehired Tryon once he decided the actor had been sufficiently punished. This incident became a turning point in Tryon's film career; he abandoned acting and began writing successful detective novels and horror stories.
- Director Otto Preminger liked actress Carol Lynley so much that he cast her in two roles—Mona and her daughter Regina. Lynley later joked that she became the only actress in cinema history to give birth to herself.
- Curd Jürgens was initially cast as one of the cardinals, but he was soon forced to leave the project because the idea of casting a repeatedly divorced actor as a cardinal drew sharp criticism.
- Thirty-five translators were assigned to the film's technical staff, the main cast, and the extras.
- As Otto Preminger wrote in his autobiography, Gore Vidal and the blacklisted Ring Lardner Jr. made significant contributions to the screenplay of 'The Cardinal'. Both Vidal and Lardner Jr. were atheists.
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