Here, have a picture. Some bad movies lead to great stills, but not this one.
G. K. Chesterton’s character Father Brown has led to at least two TV series, both eponymous and, depending on your taste, either one or the other is charming. It also has led to one or two movies, and at least Sanctuary of Fear (1979) is, ah, not charming, as my Arts Editor put it.
It’s a poorly thought out drama. Brown is now an American catholic priest in New York City, where he happens across a young woman who arrived in the big City just a few months prior. Equipped with a job typical of the era, and ambitions to make it on the stage, she is afflicted with strange incidents: a man is shot as she walks through Central Park, but disappears before she, or a man she swiftly recruits, can climb a fence and render aid. Her boss’ office is rifled and the blame affixed to her; she’s locked into her gym and late to a performance, and as she arrives late her understudy, on stage, is shot to death; the aforementioned body puts in another appearance; & etc.
Yes, it actually is interesting. But Father Brown’s later TV series, such as that starring Marc Williams, support themselves on character and charm as well as plots, and there’s precious little present here. Oh, there’s a little, such as Brown’s lovely interaction with a traffic court judge, but in the main it’s whine, whine, whine, everyone hates me, guys on the make, and a resolution that no audience member would have found.
Which cuts the fun in half. I almost wanted to see the resolution to the subplot involving an annoying monsignor and the accounting of the parish’s books, just because the monsignor was so annoying. Maybe he could join the slain.
But no such luck. In some ways this is a typical TV movie of the era, conceived in the pursuit of lucre, a pursuit that puts little value on a quality product.
A pity.
