Watch The Cardinal

The Cardinal is a 1963 Otto Preminger drama about the life of Cardinal Stephen Fermoyle. Tom Tryon plays the Catholic priest who becomes a cardinal. John Huston and Roy Schneider also star in the movie. The movie also features the last onscreen appearances of Dorothy Gish and Maggie McNamara. Cardinal Fermoyle is loosely based on the real-life Cardinal Francis Spellman. Spellman was the Archbishop of New York. The story begins in the early years of the 20th century. The movie spans Fermoyle’s ordination in 1917 to his appointment as a Cardinal slightly before the outbreak of World War II. We get to see the inner workings of the Catholic Church at local levels all the way up to the Vatican.