pniemeyer-47222 Marjoe Gortner was a child preacher. He came from a family of evangelists, and was performing marriage ceremonies and traveling the country telling congregations to give up their money to Christ before he was old enough to shave. As a teenager, he gave up that life for a while, then returned to it as a young adult because he needed the money. This film profiles him in those latter days of his preaching career, as he recounts his troubled childhood and exposes the tricks of his trade to the documentary crew.Marjoe cuts a fairly sympathetic character for somebody who made a living manipulating gullible people into thinking that Jesus could heal their cancer. His body language while addressing the flock is closely modeled after Mick Jagger's, and after this film was released, he became an actor and had a decent run on Hollywood's B-List. Nowadays, he produces celebrity charity events. So his story is not without hope, but there are times at which this film verges on dark comedy, as Marjoe sells people again and again on the patently un-Christian notion that they can simply buy their way into Heaven.For the record, when a man asked Jesus what he must do to be saved, he said, "Sell all your possessions. Then come follow me." The evangelism industry is still alive and well in America, which makes this film as relevant as ever. I feel for Marjoe. I hope that some of his followers might have eventually realized that what you do outside of church matters more than what you do in church. Highly recommended.

Tom Rochester In 1948 Hugh Marjoe Ross Gortner of Long Beach, California became an ordained preacher for the pentecostal church. He was four years old. A gifted preacher, Marjoe reached some fame and notoriety in the American South and earned his parents an estimated $3,000,000 before the novelty had worn off in his teen years. It was around this time that Marjoe became part of the Hippie movement and took stock of what had happened to him, his childhood and the money he never saw. At twenty and struggling to get by, Marjoe fell back on his greatest talent and again began to preach. He wasn't a true believer, but they believed in him. They flocked to see his Jagger swaggering sermons and paid well for the privilege.This documentary joins Marjoe in 1971 when he is 23 years old. A crisis of conscience has led him to not only give up preaching for good, but also to show us the preaching racket as it really is. We follow Marjoe for one final tour with a documentary crew under the guise of promoting the church. The film introduces the real Marjoe through a series of interviews interspersed with footage of the sermons he holds. The contrast between the two sides of his character is quite startling and to have this captured on film is quite special, some might say it's a small ironically occurring miracle. The content here was so powerful that at the time it wasn't distributed in many of the southern states. That didn't stop it taking the 1972 Best Documentary Oscar and although it did fade into obscurity for a while, in 2002 the original negative print was found and recaptured for digital release.Marjoe is a charismatic lead, talking us through his life story and giving us a window into this world. He has an implicit understanding of preaching techniques and the lucrative business behind the scenes. What is shown here feels like full disclosure, we see Marjoe briefing the crew on how to act when in church or that they should cut their hair to fit in. We see his home life and relationships, his real life outside the church and his on stage persona. I read that he was looking to become an actor (and did, sort of) and to leave this life behind him and game some publicity this film was made. Utterly unique and as relevant as ever. Even today it embarrasses the born again crowd better than Jesus Camp and that's saying something. Of course when it comes to the religious right nothing has changed, it's only gotten bigger.

tonymurphylee This documentary is really mind blowing. This is the kind of film that many people only dream about. It is so refreshing to see and hear a very articulate, smart, and brave man uncover some of the true evils in the world that, in his life, mostly exist in the religious sector. This is a man who has been put through all them and has lived to tell the tale and get his voice heard. It's a shame that not many people have seen or heard about this film, especially considering that it won the Academy Award for Best Documentary. This is the kind of film that you only wish more people would have seen or listened to. The documentary is about an ex-child evangelist preacher who in his spare time speaks to a documentary crew about his tortured childhood and his life afterwords and what tricks his parents used to promote him as a miracle. This man, Marjoe Gortner, was a victim and this film shows him standing up, not only for himself, but for all the people of the world who are forced to behave accordingly to please god and be a good Christian. It's quite intense to see this man expose all of this stuff to the public, and at the same time be so charismatic about it. But this is all just to get his point across a world that is asleep to these evils. It is amazing how powerful it is to just call someone a sinner just because of what they believe, but to call somebody a sinner just because they are trying to help people into bettering themselves, it just seems very wrong. This is a man who wants to be heard. He wants a better life, and this documentary exposes his true feelings to the public. The reason why these people do these things to children is obviously because they believe that they are the most manipulable and therefore would be the easiest to corrupt, but this film not only proves them wrong.

Baroque Filmed before the televangelism phenomenon, this film, part biography, part expose, details the rise, fall, and self-exposure of Marjoe Gortner, a one-time child evangelist who became a church tent preacher. This film details the seamier side of what Gortner calls "the religion business", and even earned Gortner a number of death threats.A rare find, if you can locate it, but a worthy viewing.