Main Cast: Don Murray, Diana Hyland, William Windom, Virginia Christine, Carol Ohmart
Release Year: 1963
Country: US
Run Time: 105 minutes
Plot
From at least the 1930s on to the 1970s, the upbeat protestant minister, Reverend Norman Vincent Peale, ministered to the well-heeled and upwardly mobile of the United States from his pulpit at the Riverside church on Fifth Avenue in New York City. At least as positive-thinking as the similarly cheery Dale Carnegie (How To Win Friends and Influence People), his lift-yourself-by-your-bootstraps message of good cheer was perceived as unorthodox by many within the churches he grew up in. After many decades of preaching his message, summed up in his best-selling book The Power of Positive Thinking, he was enshrined as a sort of secular saint. His influence reached to Presidents and corporate heads, and his name became synonymous with a kind of extraverted wholesomeness which has long since vanished. This biopic traces his career in the most respectful possible manner. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
Veronica Cartwright - Mary; Liam Sullivan - Dr. Gordon; June Dayton - Mrs. Gordon; Ian Wolfe - Bishop Hardwick; Charles Lampkin - Lafe; Virginia Sale - Miss Collingswood; David Bailey - Robert Peale as a Child; Paul Marin - Feldman; Eddie Ryder - Gas Station Attendant; Ed Peck - Harry the Reporter; John Harmon - Elder Marcus; Tom Palmer - Prof. Aiken; Sandra Gale Bettin - Alma; Sharyl Locke - Elizabeth Peale; Butch Patrick - John Peale; Gerald Gordon - Robert Peale Grown; Tom Skerritt - Leonard Peale Grown; Vernon Rich - Mr. Melton; Bing Russell - Tom Rayburn; Ann Morgan Guilbert - Receptionist; Ed Prentiss - Mr. Boardman; Arthur Marshall - Rod Allenberry; Geraldine Wall - Mae Michaels; Jon Lormer - John Hellman; Jean Carson - Woman Who Shoots Husband; Bryan O'Byrne - Organist; Hope Summers - Mrs. Thompson; Joe Hamilton - Elder Thompson
Credit
Edward C. Jewell - Art Director, Jack Angel - Costume Designer, Grace Kuhn - Costume Designer, Denis Sanders - Director, Philip W. Anderson - Editor, Richard Markowitz - Composer (Music Score), Willard Jones - Musical Direction/Supervision, Ben Lane - Makeup, Joe de Bella - Makeup, Ernest Laszlo - Cinematographer, Frank Ross - Producer, Morrie Hoffman - Set Designer, Eleanore Griffin - Screenwriter, John W. Bloch - Screenwriter, Arthur Gordon - Book Author
