Religion: Clerical Cinemagnate

One of the striking new figures in Hollywood last week was a Church of England clergyman. The Rev. Brian Hession, 37, was appearing at the best parties clad in a checked, double-breasted suit topped by a clerical collar. But handsome Brian Hession, vicar of a parish of 12,000 people in Aylesbury, England, was not in Hollywood just for fun.

As representative of British religious film interests, he wanted to: 1) persuade a major producer to make the Life of Christ in Technicolor; 2) start producing a picture based on his own novel, The Hand that Drove the Nails (Hession’s considered opinion: “It knocks The Robe into a cocked hat”); 3) set up a “liaison office” between church and cinema to “advise” on and promote Protestant films; 4) campaign for Hollywood’s struggling little Cathedral Films, which is now making Bible shorts for church & school.

The British Way. Hession, prewar R.A.F. pilot, got his “blue” in swimming at Cambridge, was the youngest vicar in the Church of England when he assumed his duties in 1936. He has had a hand in many a British religious film, has shown some of them in his church.

Says Hession of religious cinema today : “The world is in the worst mess in its history, and the cinema is the instrument with which to improve it.” But to do it, Hollywood must produce 1) more Protestant films; 2) better Catholic films. Pictures like The Bells of St. Mary’s, says he are so bad that “even Catholics object.’ These films show only the superficial aspects of religion. The average man should be forgiven if he considers them propaganda. To treat a clerical collar as the epitome of religion is a mistake. There are people in the world who have never heard of Christ.”

But, according to Hession, apparently none of them lives in Hollywood. Said he: “I’ve found out one thing while I’ve been here—that anyone with guts is desperately interested in religion. The urgency of our day . . . is beginning to crystallize most mens desire to find a way of life in spiritual things.” Among those who “feel the urgency”: Mary Pickford (“frightfully concerned with religion”), Douglas Fairbanks Jr. (“desperately seeking a working philosophy”).