Francis of Assisi

Fairly uninteresting, but not particularly offensive. This is the most complete, most straightforward Francis of Assissi movie out of the four I've recently watched (including The Flowers of St. Francis (Rossellini), Brother Sun, Sister Moon (Zeffirelli) & Francesco (Cavani)). Somewhere in the middle of the film, I brought up the Wikipedia page about the saint, and it read pretty much like the script of this movie. The production is quite nice, but one would think the tale of a man who chose to live his life in poverty wouldn't concentrate so much on sets and costumes. Bradford Dillman is forgettable as Francis. Stuart Whitman plays his rival for Clare's love (of course, Clare's love for Francis is purely religious). The addition of this love triangle is perfectly representative of old Hollywood's frequent ridiculousness. The only person who really rises to the occasion is Dolores Hart as Clare. She's quite good. Two years after this film was made, she actually became a nun. She's a member of AMPAS and is the only nun who votes for the Oscars.