Fresh and Exciting

Best movie ever!

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Perhaps if the halfway house the Hoodlum Priest envisioned as a way of diverting ex-cons away from criminality and recidivism had been built in time, Keir Dullea wouldn't have died in Missouri's gas chamber in one of most memorable execution scenes ever. The movie starts with Dullea's release from prison and reunion with a former partner in crime. They plot a robbery of a St. Louis strip joint in a seedy part of the city. Don Murray as the Hoodlum Priest offers another avenue for Dullea, and it looks good for him after he meets the daughter of one of the city's wealthy families at a cool poolside party where Murray solicits contributions for the nation's first halfway house from St. Louis's wealthy matrons. Pushing the other side of the agenda is not law enforcement but a newspaper reporter who's job is to sensationalize crime in order to sell more papers and generate ad revenue. It's all well-captured and presented, though a bit preachy at times, in authentic scenes from the streets of St. Louis by should-be-better-known director Irvin Kershner.

While a very good film, the picture falls into the trap of trying to depict the horrors of capital punishment. This has been shown so much in the past and present.Don Murray's performance, while good, could make you easily forget that he was a priest. To say that he was sympathetic to convicts is to put it mildly. This was definitely his calling. The first scene of the film, he appears to be a gangster himself; especially, when he is offered a 1/3 in a proposed heist.Keir Dulleas was excellent here and was robbed of a best supporting Oscar nomination here. His death-row scene with his girlfriend was so reminiscent of Monty Clift with Elizabeth Taylor in "A Place in the Sun," 10 years before. Are the Dullea character and others victims of society, rather than perpetrators of crime?

I was 13 when this film came out and while I don't know for sure why I never got to see this. I'm guessing, morals being what they were at the time; this was probably judged to rough a movie for a boy my age. It probably would have been a R rated movie in it's day. So when I saw it listed on Turner Classic Movies I thought great, I finally get a chance to see this old film. Well now that I've seen it I'm amazed this film gets so much buzz. I found it to be way to melodramatic, over acted and just plain hammy. I'm not sure how this could have ever been relevant. I know that Father Clark did great work in his time; but this seems a poor way to tell his story. Almost everyone in this movie is over acting. I'm guessing that's the fault of the director, but that doesn't make it any easier to sit through. I'm sure many will be drawn to this film by Keir Dullea's name in the cast. Dullea's fame comes from 2001 a film whose uniqueness at the time; pulled along most of the actors who happened to be in it. Like the Hoodlum Priest there were no great performances in that film either. A film for film school students, theater majors, and nostalgia buffs. A corny waste of time.

The true story of Jesuit priest Father Charles Dismas Clark and his struggles in opening a halfway house for recently-paroled convicts in '50s-era St. Louis. Lead actor Don Murray (who also co-produced the film and co-wrote the screenplay under a pseudonym) was reportedly inspired to tackle this project after meeting the real Father Dismas Clark, who is credited as technical adviser; still, one can see right away how this production got funded, what with a violent police standoff in the third act, capped with a dramatic gas chamber sequence. Despite talented Irvin Kershner as director and Haskell Wexler as cinematographer, the picture isn't any more weighty or profound than the juvenile delinquent programmers of the previous decade. Keir Dullea makes a strong debut as a troubled youth, but Murray and the other cast members generally fail to impress. *1/2 from ****