Marjoe

Marjoe Gortner was a child preacher. He came from a family of evangelists, and was performing marriage ceremonies and traveling the country telling congregations to give up their money to Christ before he was old enough to shave. As a teenager, he gave up that life for a while, then returned to it as a young adult because he needed the money. This film profiles him in those latter days of his preaching career, as he recounts his troubled childhood and exposes the tricks of his trade to the documentary crew.

Marjoe cuts a fairly sympathetic character for somebody who made a living manipulating gullible people into thinking that Jesus could heal their cancer. His body language while addressing the flock is closely modeled after Mick Jagger's, and after this film was released, he became an actor and had a decent run on Hollywood's B-List. Nowadays, he produces celebrity charity events. So his story is not without hope, but there are times at which this film verges on dark comedy, as Marjoe sells people again and again on the patently un-Christian notion that they can simply buy their way into Heaven.

For the record, when a man asked Jesus what he must do to be saved, he said, "Sell all your possessions. Then come follow me." The evangelism industry is still alive and well in America, which makes this film as relevant as ever. I feel for Marjoe. I hope that some of his followers might have eventually realized that what you do outside of church matters more than what you do in church. Highly recommended.

Former child evangelist Marjoe Gortner lays it on the line, presumably, in this riveting true story of his life as a traveling Pentecostal preacher in the early 1970s, long before cable TV and the "electronic church". Gortner, a tall, charming, and charismatic guy talks to a documentary film crew of counterculture hippies about his techniques and tricks of the trade. "If you're going to get into big time religion, this is the game you gotta play ... you work it as a business ... The (preachers) who are successful ... they're just businessmen; they're like Madison Avenue PR men".

The camera follows Marjoe as he preaches in various settings, including an old fashioned big tent revival meeting. He shouts hallelujah a lot, prances back and forth in front of his prey, and spews out general gospel gibberish. And, of course, there's the inevitable request for ... "a love offering". At one meeting, he intones, earnestly: "Would you get out your checkbooks tonight; would some of you get out $5 or $10; bring what you would ... come on". After everyone has left, we see him sitting on his bed counting wads of cash.

The film's technical elements are fine, although there's a tendency to dwell too long in some settings. We get the idea; truly, we do.

To watch these swindlers is infuriating, in that their con is aimed at vulnerable people, those who are in varying conditions of physical and/or mental pain. Most of these victims are low-income, poorly educated folks who cannot afford to throw their money at flimflam artists. Accordingly, viewers must surely appreciate Marjoe's successful effort through this film to expose the motivations and manipulations of these "salesmen".

Of course, a performance is a performance whether it's aimed at true believers in some revival tent, or at an audience watching a film documentary. In "Marjoe", Marjoe puts on a good show. But is his message credible? I think events of the last 35 years have shown that, for the most part, the answer is yes ... his message is credible.

Filmed before the televangelism phenomenon, this film, part biography, part expose, details the rise, fall, and self-exposure of Marjoe Gortner, a one-time child evangelist who became a church tent preacher. This film details the seamier side of what Gortner calls "the religion business", and even earned Gortner a number of death threats.

A rare find, if you can locate it, but a worthy viewing.

I was fortunate to have a liberal minded college professor who showed this documentary in my freshman Religious studies course. Throughout, and after the viewing my classmates and I could not help but laugh at the TRULY strange character Marjoe is (the 70's garb helps). Some of us outright cracked up. Others were offended. He is so glib about bilking the masses. You find yourself sitting back at some point in the flick and saying, "See, I told you." Charisma is awesome and it is rarely seen as strong as Marjoe possesses it.

In 1948 Hugh Marjoe Ross Gortner of Long Beach, California became an ordained preacher for the pentecostal church. He was four years old. A gifted preacher, Marjoe reached some fame and notoriety in the American South and earned his parents an estimated $3,000,000 before the novelty had worn off in his teen years. It was around this time that Marjoe became part of the Hippie movement and took stock of what had happened to him, his childhood and the money he never saw. At twenty and struggling to get by, Marjoe fell back on his greatest talent and again began to preach. He wasn't a true believer, but they believed in him. They flocked to see his Jagger swaggering sermons and paid well for the privilege.

This documentary joins Marjoe in 1971 when he is 23 years old. A crisis of conscience has led him to not only give up preaching for good, but also to show us the preaching racket as it really is. We follow Marjoe for one final tour with a documentary crew under the guise of promoting the church. The film introduces the real Marjoe through a series of interviews interspersed with footage of the sermons he holds. The contrast between the two sides of his character is quite startling and to have this captured on film is quite special, some might say it's a small ironically occurring miracle. The content here was so powerful that at the time it wasn't distributed in many of the southern states. That didn't stop it taking the 1972 Best Documentary Oscar and although it did fade into obscurity for a while, in 2002 the original negative print was found and recaptured for digital release.

Marjoe is a charismatic lead, talking us through his life story and giving us a window into this world. He has an implicit understanding of preaching techniques and the lucrative business behind the scenes. What is shown here feels like full disclosure, we see Marjoe briefing the crew on how to act when in church or that they should cut their hair to fit in. We see his home life and relationships, his real life outside the church and his on stage persona. I read that he was looking to become an actor (and did, sort of) and to leave this life behind him and game some publicity this film was made. Utterly unique and as relevant as ever. Even today it embarrasses the born again crowd better than Jesus Camp and that's saying something. Of course when it comes to the religious right nothing has changed, it's only gotten bigger.