The Missionary (1982)

Michael Palin (A Fish Called Wanda) and Maggie Smith (Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood) star in this delectable wicked little comedy (Playboy) that puts a devout missionary into a precarious position! Reverend Charles Fortescue (Palin) has a problem. His boss the bishop (Denholm Elliott) wants him to minister to the city s fallen women. But when Fortescue begins recruiting converts from the streets he discovers that these lusty ladies are only willing to submit to salvation if they are permitted to share his bed! Hilarious and sexy The Missionary is charming [and] buoyant (The New York Times)!System Requirements:Running Time: 87 Min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY Rating: R UPC: 027616884473 Manufacturer No: 1004367 Product Description

MONTY PYTHON ALERT! Cuddly Michael Palin's "The Missionary"

The Rev.Charles Fortescue has returned to Victorian England after ten years among the natives of Colonial Africa.He arrives home with the intention of marriage to his fiancee,Deborah Fitzbank,a proper twit airhead who has an extreme obsessive/compulsive disorder of organizing things! No sooner does Fortescue settle in that The Bishop of London commissions him to work among "the ladies of the night;" and so begins the next tongue-in-cheek,typically British-humored chapter in dear Missionary Fortescue's life!

Anyone who is a big fan of The Monty Python alumni will immediately recognize Michael Palin,voted "most cute of the Monty Python group." Palin wrote and stars as Fortescue in this typically English farce that is all laughs in an economical 81 minutes.You cannot help but love Palin's Fortescue as do all of the "fallen women" of the East End of London.He is irresistible to all of them...and this "holy innocent" doesn't seem to get the clue! Maggie Smith, as the stately but seductive Lady Ames throws herself at him as one of his "biggest supporters", and still Fortescue is intent and oblivious to his animal magnetism to the opposite sex!

As the Brits would say,"Good show.Rollicking good fun!" and it is. This sprite film is full of the best of the BBC and Monty Python group for the last 30 years.Any fan of "Brit Wit" will be pointing at the screen and saying "oh she was in...and he starred in.."...you get it.Michael Palin is truly irresistible to anyone in this adorable romp through Victorian London.Palin shows off the writing and acting skills that have made him a five time BAFTA Award winner,even outshining John Cleese (probably more well recognized in America).For "ripping fun" and stayed British humor, THE MISSIONARY is a found Holy Grail! November 13, 2007

Full Screen

The information Amazon gives on this DVD does not stipulate whether it is wide-screen or full screen. I purchased on the assumption that it was the theatric release ratio but it is the full screen version. If this is what you want, fine, but otherwise watch out. I am not giving a review because full screen movies are not worth watching. July 19, 2005

Strange, funny, with good performances, by Palin, et. al.

This movie, about a missionary, who comes back from Africa, and is about to get married to his highly organised [British spelling] fiance, is given an assignment by his bishop, to "convert" the "fallen women" (prostitutes) of England. With funny performances by Palin, Maggie Smith (stunningly attractive in an aristocratic way), Phoebe Nicholls, as his future wife (you have to see the movie to see if he marries her), and others, presents a wickedly funny look at a man who seeks to do good, in the face of temptation. Not bad. July 7, 2004

The cleric and the working girls

Sometimes, life among the "uncivilized" is less taxing.

Michael Palin is the Reverend Charles Fortescue, an Anglican cleric recalled to England in 1906 after spending the previous ten years in the bush among African tribesmen. Charles happily anticipates marriage to his sweetheart of long standing, Deborah (Phoebe Nicholls), and, perhaps, a posting as the vicar of a country church in the south of England. If he only knew, poor devil, he might have elected to stay on the Dark Continent.

THE MISSIONARY encompasses three subplots. While silly and demanding Deborah plans the wedding, she allows her beloved not even so much as a kiss on the cheek before the vows are solemnized. Until then, her great passion is for her system of filing papers and correspondence, an interest about which she prattles on endlessly. In the meantime, the Bishop of London gives Charles his new assignment - to establish a halfway house for prostitutes in the squalid London Dockyards. But the greatest threat to Fortescue's peace of mind is the bored and lusty wife of a filthy rich and semi-senile old Lord (Trevor Howard), Lady Isabel Ames (Maggie Smith), who offers herself in exchange for financial backing of the Mission for Fallen Women. Before long, Charles has problems with the gentler gender, especially when his redeemed working girls begin showing their, um, appreciation for his kind and sensitive nature. It doesn't help Fortescue maintain a stiff upper lip that he's a closet sensualist too long denied.

THE MISSIONARY, described as a "gentle satire", doesn't really work because the separate parts never mesh as well as they could. Deborah remains clueless virtually throughout; the complication represented by Lady Isabel veers off into a clumsily done sidebar involving an attempted murder; the relationship between Charles and his flock is quickly left behind. There aren't enough chuckles to recommend this film, although the best are perhaps when the butler employed by Lord and Lady Ames first ushers Fortescue into a country palace so huge that the guide gets hopelessly lost. Or when the sudden death of a terminally aged, potential benefactor goes unnoticed by Charles while expounding at length on the spiritual needs of the deprived underclasses.

A much classier comedy about an Anglican minister unnerved by the pesky existence of sex is SIRENS (1994), which benefits from the discomfiture of Hugh Grant in the lead role faced with an unashamedly unclothed bevy of Babes that includes supermodel Elle Macpherson. January 23, 2004

A Missionary With a Difference

Michael Palin plays a missionary who has just returned after ten years in Africa. He has a fiancé waiting and has high hopes for a good position.

But all does not go as planned. He keeps running into an intriguing woman, his fiancé is obsessed with filing, and his church wants him to tackle the growing problem of "fallen women" working in the docklands.

Faced with the task of setting up a mission in London, he must find funding and souls to save. But to do either he finds that he may have to extend a different sort of kindness. One that gets him money and fills the mission with prospects.

But, again, all is not well. Other churches are jealous, all of their prospects want to go to Palin's mission. His funding source gets jealous and stops funding. He learns of a murder plot that he must stop. He must even go against the wishes of the church in order to save the women.

All of this is wrapped in a sort of dry British humor. We have the fiancé who is utterly obsessed with filing, a butler who can't go from one room to another without getting lost, and all sorts of subtle gags. In the middle is Palin as the straight man dealing with it all.

A good movie, but I have to agree with others that I can't believe MGM released it only in full-screen (several scenes have only a character's nose making it onto the screen). September 3, 2003

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