Pious Film

Franklin D. Roosevelt and Edward of Wales have both had biographies done into cinema for publicity purposes. In Manhattan last week opened a film sponsored by the Catholic Writers Guild for "those whose circumstances prevent them from appearing before [the Pope] in person at Rome." It is a compilation of newsreels concerning Pope Pius XI, interspersed with picture postcard views of Rome and the Vatican. Entitled The Shepherd of the Seven Hills (by Faith Pictures Corp., formed solely for this production), it will be shown throughout the U. S.

The Pope first appears blessing a throng at the Vatican upon his election in 1922. In later shots he seems more mellow, friendly, self-assured. He receives Boy Scouts in his favorite spot in the Vatican Gardens, the garish reproduction of the Grotto of Lourdes. The King & Queen of Italy visit him; black missionaries kiss his finger. The Pope speaks once, in his soft, old-man's voice, at the opening of his radio station.

Sharp-eyed Catholics will note that in almost every sequence Pius XI is accompanied by his favorite secretary, Monsignor Camillo Caccia Dominioni, who is supposed to have been secretly nominated a Cardinal last spring. The four U. S. Cardinals appear, with the camera most friendly to New York's amiable Hayes. The famed Swiss Guards parade in the uniforms which Michelangelo designed for them--cuirasses, helmets, ruffs, yellow, red and black striped knickerbockers. In the larger scenes--the raising of the Cross in the Coliseum, the Chicago and Dublin Eucharistic Congresses, the opening of the Holy Year last April--there is much excited Roman bustling, with crowds surging, clerical robes flapping in the breeze, prelates gesticulating, nodding, signaling. In the signing of the Lateran Treaty, Cardinal Gasparri has pen in hand, treaty before him. With a stout finger he points--here; a prelate points--there; he points back -- here; and signs. The Shepherd of the Seven Hills is accompanied throughout with choir-singing and the unctuous voice of Radio Narrator Basil Ruysdael.

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