Some of the reviewers here say it's a film made by Christians for Christians . This is entirely true . It follows the life of Scottish born preacher Peter Marshall who emigrates from Coatbridge to America and eventually becomes Chaplain of the US Senate . That's the story and in order to pad out the run time we're many , many sermons from Marshall . Apparently the screenplay is adapted from the biography written by Marshall's wife Catherine . Knowing this you become reminded of the quote from the avowed atheist George Orwell - and forgive me for paraphrasing - that " An ( Auto) biography is only worth reading if it contains something disgraceful " and unfortunately there's nothing disgraceful at all . In fact I doubt if I've never seen anything so inoffensive in the history of cinema which while it's not necessarily a criticism in itself means there's no dilemmas , no plot and no drama . This won't be the case when we get biopics on obnoxious little bigots like Phelps , Robertson and Falwell no matter how biased a picture is painted of them
This goes to show that it's a waste of time making books and movies on nice guys . There were a couple of things that peaked my interest . I guess the reason I watched is down to there being an empathy for someone from Scotland even if we have totally contradictory views on religion . It's interesting to note that Marshall , a protestant lived in Coatbridge , a Scottish town with a (in)famous reputation for being devoutly Catholic . It's also interesting that the Scottish characters do not speak with a West of Scotland accent , more of wishy washy fake Highland one . Richard Todd was always good at playing nice guys so he's well cast as Peter Marshall . The stand out achievement of the film however is the cinematography by Harold Lipstein . which is gloriously rich and held my interest in a film where nothing really happens
This goes to show that it's a waste of time making books and movies on nice guys . There were a couple of things that peaked my interest . I guess the reason I watched is down to there being an empathy for someone from Scotland even if we have totally contradictory views on religion . It's interesting to note that Marshall , a protestant lived in Coatbridge , a Scottish town with a (in)famous reputation for being devoutly Catholic . It's also interesting that the Scottish characters do not speak with a West of Scotland accent , more of wishy washy fake Highland one . Richard Todd was always good at playing nice guys so he's well cast as Peter Marshall . The stand out achievement of the film however is the cinematography by Harold Lipstein . which is gloriously rich and held my interest in a film where nothing really happens