Owing to a clerical error, John Smallwood, a prison padre and good-natured believer in goodwill to all men, is appointed vicar of the conservative village of Orbiston Parva. Soon his wild ideas about being nice to people and offering charity to the poor begin to cause both commercial and political ructions ...
This is a lovely gentle satire on both the lapsed, self-serving attitude of middle England towards Christianity and the tenuous position of the torporific Church in the face of consumer culture. Sellers is excellent as Smallwood, whose simple faith in the merits of Christ's teachings - self-sacrifice, forgiveness, penitence - are at odds with a community which is too busy to go to Sunday Service, likes to evict layabouts and wants to build factories to attract business. Boulting and Frank Harvey's script is excellent, making its points subtly and effectively through character, but also with some witty gags (a train guard addresses a compartment full of clerics, saying, "Last supper, gentlemen."). The large cast all acquit themselves well, especially Sykes and Handl as a pair of spongers with an indeterminate number of children, Peters as a dustman-turned-church-warden, Miles as a quietly ruthless butler, and a very young Kinnear as an ex-convict. This is the film for those people who consider themselves religious and think the Church is a wonderful institution, but don't actually feel they need to go.
This is a lovely gentle satire on both the lapsed, self-serving attitude of middle England towards Christianity and the tenuous position of the torporific Church in the face of consumer culture. Sellers is excellent as Smallwood, whose simple faith in the merits of Christ's teachings - self-sacrifice, forgiveness, penitence - are at odds with a community which is too busy to go to Sunday Service, likes to evict layabouts and wants to build factories to attract business. Boulting and Frank Harvey's script is excellent, making its points subtly and effectively through character, but also with some witty gags (a train guard addresses a compartment full of clerics, saying, "Last supper, gentlemen."). The large cast all acquit themselves well, especially Sykes and Handl as a pair of spongers with an indeterminate number of children, Peters as a dustman-turned-church-warden, Miles as a quietly ruthless butler, and a very young Kinnear as an ex-convict. This is the film for those people who consider themselves religious and think the Church is a wonderful institution, but don't actually feel they need to go.