G | 2 h 17 min | Drama | 1944
Young, handsome Francis Chisholm (Gregory Peck) hopes to marry his childhood sweetheart in his native Scotland. But fate and faith have him pick priesthood. Then the early 20th-century Catholic Church sends him on a mission to the tumultuous province of Pai-tan, China.
He arrives to a church ruined by floods. The few faithful who linger, turn out to be notorious “rice Christians,” ready to rebuild, but they’re in it more for food than faith. Francis will have none of it. He prefers converts who aren’t also cashing in.
Director John Stahl’s opening shot frames Francis when he’s old, looking diminutive beside a large church building as he returns from a fishing trip, rod in hand. It’s 1938 Scotland; the dusk, not the dawn, of his journey. Stahl seems to say that Francis may be overlooked in the episcopal hierarchy, but spiritually, he looms like a colossus….