E Venne un Uomo Reviews

A less than satisfying film about Pope John XXIII, played by Steiger in a half-theatrical, half-documentary production that cuts from actual color footage of the Pontiff to dramatic vignettes enacted by Steiger, chronicling this great man's rise from peasant surroundings to leader of the Catholic Church. Steiger reads passages from John's diary in voice-over during the showing of the clips, and the story suffers through this erratic technique because viewer attention is tugged in two directions. Steiger's masterful talent does come to the surface in one powerful and poignant scene wherein his confession is heard by an alcoholic and weepingly repentant priest. Only Steiger speaks English; the other voices are dubbed from the Italian so poorly that they sound as if they are speaking through hollow tin cans.