Watch Marjoe For Free

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Child prodigy evangelist Marjoe Gortner exposes the itinerant Pentecostal church tent revival circuit as a total money-grubbing scam after having a crisis of conscience and deciding to pursue an acting career in the wake of finishing one final tour across the country.Directors Howard Smith and Sarah Kernochan do a remarkably vivid and compelling job of painting an intriguing and provocative portrait of a hugely likable and charismatic, yet deeply conflicted and cynical person who's more than happy to reveal such tricks of the trade as talking in tongues, making people pass out by claiming to channel the spirit of God and touching their foreheads, and collecting donations for worthy charitable causes as the complete shams that they are. Moreover, one not only has to admire Gortner for having the guts and integrity for coming clean about his being a slick phony, but also you even feel sorry for Gortner considering that his strict and overbearing parents forced him at the age of four to become a child preacher -- the archive footage of precious toddler Gortner officiating a wedding is simply incredible! -- and even abused him if he didn't do their bidding (they also eventually made off with all the money he made for them!). In addition, Gortner sure puts on one hell of an electrifying show as he preaches fire and brimstone sermons to the gullible God-fearing masses that he's contriving to bilk out of their hard-earned cash. A mesmerizing depiction of a sly huckster.

This is good for so many reasons. First off it's just a well done and to the point documentary, but the main reason it is good is because it exposes the truth about these faith healers out there in the world.Some would say that its true that this film shows that marjoe was a fake but that doesn't go for all the faith healers out there. Here is why i believe it outs all the faith healers as fakes. Marjoe was able to do all the big things they do.He could Touch people and have them fall over and not only that but he had people shaking on the floor and speaking in tongues. Marjoe explains how to do all this. Its no different than a magic trick. Marjoe just proved that its easy to take advantage of desperate and ignorant people.

I saw this film on the now gone "Z" Channel in Los Angeles in the early 80's. At that time, I knew "of" Marjoe from when I was a kid watching TV. I didn't know his name, but his face and the really tense overacting he always did. Now I figured out why. It was sad for me to see what people do to their children under the guise of something...here it was religion. This documentary is NOT to show you "religion is bad" or "folks in religion are crooks" but just like in everything else in this world, there are the few that make a bad name for everything. Here, you see it in the manipulation of a child. I was stunned watching this. A must see documentary for all.And let me add... its been 15 years since the wonderful "Z" Channel went off the air in the Los Angeles area and now with hordes of pay movie channels, not ONE has come to the level of "Z" showing all kinds of programming of movies, documentaries, international films, animations etc. I say that because I haven't seen Marjoe come up, as well as alot of others but they run the SAME films over and over again like none other were made! Take a note pay movie programmers and show these films again.

I saw this in a theater when it was brand new. In 1972, it wasn't a new idea to do a movie about evangelism which is seamy, but in 1972, the idea of reality documentary was quite novel. (Think of "An American Family" -- a chronical of the Loud family done about the same time) The movie was well received. Marjoe Gortner received quite a bit of critical praise for the technical aspects associated with the movie as well as his acting ability. Marjoe got quite a bit of the "good" stuff in the movie by telling people he was filming a documentary -- the people didn't know the parts where they talked about how to do some scamming would also be in the final cut.As a result of this expose, Marjoe was offered a significant role in the 2-hour kickoff to the Kojak series. He played a nervous rapist-murderer.