THE KEYS OF THE KINGDOM

New Zealand Listener, Volume 13, Issue 327, 28 September 1945, Page 18

THE KEYS OF THE KINGDOM

(20th Century-Fox)

A J. CRONIN’S novel about * @ priest who spends most of his life as a missionary in China has been turned into a film which is likely to please

almost everybody and offend almost nobody. In other words, it is a thoroughly innocuous, and therefore rather colourless, piece of work, Considering the theme I supposé that this must be regarded as no small achievement; but I would myself have preferfed that the picture should have contained material for at least one good argument; some reason to get all burned up, either with enthusiasm or indignation, I don’t much care which. As it is, only the fanattcs will be stirred by The Keys of the King-dom-and you can’t argue with a fanatic. The rest will. come away from the theatre believing that they have seen a "memorable" film-and will forget all about it in a few months’ time. Failing any major cause for controversy, one must look at the details of the production for points to criticise and admire. The list is headed on the assets side by the starring performance of Gregory Peck, a gangling but good-look-ing young giant who plays Father Francis Chisholm with great earnestness and considerable intelligence. He leaves us with a clear impression of Father Chisholm’s magnificent humility; and since humility is perhaps the least spectacular of all the virtues, this takes some acting. The star is most ably supported by Rosa Stradner as the nun, Thomas Mitchell as the atheist (God bless him! What

a lovable character that is), Vincent Price as the worldly bishop, and Sir Cedric Hardwicke as that smooth prelate, Monsignor Sleeth. (I suppose I should include Edmund Gwenn in this list. He plays the benign old Scottish bishop who sends young Father Chisholm as a missionary to China, but somehow I found it hard to dissociate Edmund Gwenn in prelate’s robes from some of the more mundane roles he has often played). Other virtues in the film are the fact that it is handsomely mounted, contains genuine Chinese playing the parts of Chinese, and has several snatches of very witty dialogue. Its chief faults are that it is excessively long, excessively wordy (particularly in the farewell speeches when Father Chisholm returns to Scotland from China), and also that some parts are much too theatrical. Among less-important defects may be listed the fact that a celestial Wurlitzer is always just off-screen, ready (as another critic has so aptly put it) "to burst into sound at the drop of a cliché"; that Sister Marie Veronica, when writing a letter, apparently uses shorthand, an accomplishment surely strange in a high-born Austrian lady at the turn of the century; the American accents spoken by the natives of Tweedside; and the awful botch which has been made of Gregory Peck’s make-up as an old man. ‘As for its religious content, the film manages to be sincere without. being

sanctimonious; it does not walk in undue awe of religion as such. I would hesitate, however, to call it inspirational: it is a bit too pedestrian for that.