Francis of Assisi (film)

Francis of Assisi is a 1961 DeLuxe CinemaScope film directed by Michael Curtiz, based on the novel The Joyful Beggar by Louis de Wohl. It was shot entirely in Italy. The film was a box office loss. It starred Bradford Dillman in one of his few sympathetic leading film roles he usually played a villainous character onscreen, despite having originated the role of Jamie in the original stage version of Eugene ONeills Long Days Journey into Night in 1956.

Francis Bernardone Bradford Dillman is the son of a wealthy cloth merchant in Assisi, who gives up all his worldly goods to dedicate himself to God. Clare Dolores Hart is a young aristocratic woman who, according to the film, is so taken with St. Francis that she leaves her family and becomes a nun. By this time 1212 A.D., St. Francis has a wellestablished reputation for his vows of poverty. The movie goes on to note miracles such as the appearance of the stigmata on Franciss hands and feet and other aspects of his life, up to and including his death on October 3, 1226. The funeral befitted a man loved by man and beast alike, and ended with the birds he loved doing a flyby.

Source: Wikipedia