Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

I have to give this movie an 8 out of 10, which isn't too bad.First off, I remember seeing this movie on cable, in the VERY EARLY days of cable, and I had to have been maybe nine or ten at the time.It wasn't until about a year ago, that I saw it for the first time when I really understood what was going on with the characters.Anthony Quinn, usually a ham and a half, turned in a very restrained, yet passionate performance as a man who was bulldozed into being a pope. He wasn't expecting to even be named as a Cardinal after his release, much less get elected to the Papal Throne! Poor thing looked like he'd been smacked with a board when they all stood up and started nominating him, in spite of VERY vociferous protests.Oskar Werner, who is rapidly becoming one of my favorite actors, was just as passionate as Father Telemond, the troubled young priest (really? Wasn't he in his forties at the time? But that's a teeny quibble.) I watched as he was taken to pieces by the first commission, and yet throughout it all, he didn't really lose his temper. He knew what the outcome would be, no matter what he said, so he told the absolute truth. The Church needed a good kick up the bum and he was the one attempting to do so. Too bad it was pretty much inured to being kicked.There are ways around being silenced and forbidden to publish that he could have taken and didn't.A. Leave the Church (which he admitted that he couldn't do), and publish anyway.B. If he had any REALLY good friends on the outside that were in a position to do so, he could have sold them the publishing rites for a dollar, and publish that way. They weren't bright enough to think of that option or forbid it to him, so technically, he wouldn't have been disobeying them.Unfortunately, he was much too honest of a man and priest to do that, so he accepted their decision.The subplot with David Janssen, his unhappy wife and cutesy putesy chickeeboo could have been eliminated completely, and made for a much tighter film.The subplot with the Chinese nation being on the verge of starvation and NO ONE HELPING!!! was a little bit hard to believe. You can't tell ME that the Red Cross, and other relief organizations wouldn't have come a knocking on China's doors to help out, no matter what the U.S. etc. said. Their purpose is to help those in need, PERIOD END OF STORY!!! I was saddened at the death of Fr. Telemond, but really, since they spent a lot of time talking about it, it was pretty much expected.The scene between Anthony Quinn and Leo McKern was touching. I knew that Cardinal Leone was jealous of the relationship between the Pope and Fr. Telemond, but it was nice to see him finally acknowledging it.The ending was a bit, I dunno, cheesy isn't the word to use, but it didn't seem all that genuine to me.Sure, the speech was nice enough, but it just didn't really have any 'oomph' to it, I suppose.Still and all, excellent movie, but a smidge dull.

Set in a futuristic vision of the late 1980's, Ukrainian Archbishop Kiril Lakota (Anthony Quinn , though Rex Harrison was originally considered to play the role) is set free after spending several years as a political prisoner in Siberia where carries out forced works . Although it is never mentioned or indicated at any point in the film, the story is actually set 20 years in the future . The Ukrainian man is brought to Rome by Fr. David Telemond (Oscar Werner) , a troubled young priest who is under scrutiny for his beliefs and befriends him and he contends adversities until rising to cardinal and lately Pope . Once at the Vatican, he is immediately given an audience with the Pope (John Gielgud , he subsequently played Pope Pius XII, in The Scarlet and the Black (1983) and Elizabeth (1998), where he played Pope Pius V) , who elevates him to Cardinal Priest . The priest turned Pope singlehandedly attempts to stop bigotry , strife , famine , world conflict , his own personal conflicts and many other difficulties . As the world is on the brink of war due to a Chinese-Soviet feud made worse by a famine caused by trade restrictions brought against China by the U.S. When the Pontiff suddenly dies , Lakota's genuine character and unique life experience move the College of Cardinals to elect him as the new Pope But as a good pacifier , he has to find a solution to Chinese starvation , plus the crisis between China (Burt Kwouk as Chinese leader) and Russia (Laurence Olivier, as one of the Russian Premiers) . Meanwhile , a correspondent (David Janssen) attempts to patch his petty marital troubles at a loving triangle between wife (Barbara Jefford) and young lover (Rosemary Dexter) . This is a moving but overlong film and in some moments results to be dull ; based on Morris L. West's best seller that contains drama , interesting world policy , emotion and historical events . Good film with thought-provoking issues and dealing with an Ukrainian's rise from a simple imprisoned priest to the college of Cardinals until becoming Pope . The film is pretty well but being wasted by a loving triangular drama between a reporter , spouse and girlfriend . Very good acting by Anthony Quinn as Pope Kiril I who must now deal with a lot of problems as his own self-doubt , the struggle of his friend priest and tries to fend off atomic war ; this type of treatment was a big turning point for Quinn . Reference is made to Kiril being the first non-Italian pope to be elected since Adrian VI 400 years earlier . In real life, this happened 10 years after this film was released with the election of Pope John Paul II . The footage showing the arrival of the Cardinals and the crowds gathering in St. Peter's Square is taken from news reels and other archive films that documented the events between the death of Pope John XXIII and the election of Pope Paul VI in 1963 . Colorful and evocative cinematography by Erwin Hillier , filmed in Panavison . Rousing score by Alex North , though he reused the opening fanfare he wrote for 2001 (1968) but which had been rejected by Stanley Kubrick, as one of the main themes in his soundtrack . This epic point of view of a rise of an obstinate locked priest from a Siberian prison until Cardinal and Pope was well directed directed by Michael Anderson though emerge some flaws , being alternately compelling and uneven .

A pretty good movie...You have to understand...All popes were Italian--until Karol Wojtyla was elected in the late 70s as Pope. The former Wojtyla...survived both the Nazis and the Communists.Thus, this movie's fictional Pope has much in common with the real life first non-Italian Pope - Karol Wojtyla - also from a then-communist country--Poland.At the Vatican, the cardinals (in their desperation to reach a vote---and to elect a Pope who would be a good leader) elect the new Cardinal from then-communist Russia - former Ukranian Prisoner ##102592R - Kiril Pavov Lakota...who had served 20 years in a Siberian labor camp (later called "gulags").There are various subplots---described by others here. But the big plot is the threat of nuclear war between the Soviets and the Chinese (who are suffering a huge famine & who might use nuclear weapons).As some Americans are now taught that the "Cold War" was no big deal, this movie's dangerous international situations will no doubt seem fake. But read up (far & wide) the Cold War (and the thread of nuclear war) was real. (I knew a man who said...his plane carried a nuclear warhead!) While some of this movie is a bit too late 1960s---and a touch creaky, maybe this movie will inspire some to research (in multiple places) the AMAZING essentially nonviolent way that Communism fell apart in the Soviet Union & its European satellites.And --in the 1980s---a US President, a British Prime Minister, a Polish working man, ...and a Polish born Pope were the main ones to "tear down the wall"!!!

The movie has out to the Cinema about 10 years before the world knows the biggest Pope of all mankind, and there is too many common points between Krill and John Paul II, until the "official biography" out in DVD i thought that The Shoes Of Fisherman was the biography of John Paul II until see the date of the movie, but who knows that the movie was a message from heavens. Well we can think that The Fihserman Shoes is a kind of biography before the world knows the man that change the way that the world see your self. Is one of the best movies of ever and could be used like a research tool to a work about the great one John Paul II