Product Details

• Actors: Michael Palin, Maggie Smith, Trevor Howard, Denholm Elliott, Michael Hordern
• Directors: Richard Loncraine
• Writers: Michael Palin
• Producers: Michael Palin, Denis O'Brien, George Harrison, Neville C. Thompson
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, HiFi Sound, NTSC
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Paramount
• VHS Release Date: November 11, 1998
• Run Time: 90 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 630253013X
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #328,998 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Missionary With a Difference, September 3, 2003

By 

Joshua Koppel (Chicago, IL United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Missionary (DVD)

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).

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars 'Modified to fit your screen.", April 14, 2003

By 

Daverz - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Missionary (DVD)

How could MGM release a fullscreen only version of a film at this late date? I'm afraid that this lovely film is too obscure ever to be re-issued in the correct aspect ratio. I hope I'm proved wrong.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Try to change the world, and the world changes you!, May 15, 2001

By 

Chuck Low (Houston, TX USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Missionary [VHS] (VHS Tape)

After ten years of heroic missionary work, the Rev. Charles Fortesque is recalled from Africa and reassigned to the most pressing problem of the Church of England - to reform "fallen women" who work on the back streets of East London. Yet, ironically, by a strange twist of fate, it is he who is reformed by a woman who once was "fallen". Or, is it that he always does the decent thing? I loved the reversals!