THE WORLD’S GREATEST SINNER. Frenzy Productions, 1962. Written, produced, directed by & starring Timothy Carey. Music (some of it) by Frank Zappa. Narrated by Paul Frees.

   The more films I watch (and I’ve watched a few) the more convinced I am that Cinema in the last half of the 20th Century was all about Timothy Carey.

   Start with THE WILD ONE, EAST OF EDEN, THE KILLING, PATHS OF GLORY, ONE-EYED JACKS, RIO CONCHOS, then move on to BEACH BLANKET BINGO, MERMAIDS OF TIBURON, THE OUTFIT, POOR WHITE TRASH, HEAD, SHOCK TREATMENT, BIKINI BEACH, and FRANCIS IN THE HAUNTED HOUSE — the man seems ubiquitous. And often memorable. His wild dance in POOR WHITE TRASH combines the grace of Chaplin with the energy of Gene Kelley.

   Watching Carey on screen, straining at bit parts, one can sense the creative passion oozing from his pores. So it was probably inevitable that he made this very personal and idiosyncratic film, with nods to CITIZEN KANE, A FACE IN THE CROWD and THE IMMORAL MR TEAS. And while it’s touched with greatness, it’s still not very good.

   Most of the problem can be set down to budget. Much of THE WORLD’S GREATEST SINNER is beset by cheap sets, poor lighting, bad acting (Well it’s hard to tell about the acting since most of the actors have to declaim their lines just to register on the tinny sound track.) mis-matched stock footage, and the general air of desperate cheapness one finds in porno films — or ahem! at least I assume that’s what porno films are like. Not that I’d know first-hand, you understand.

   Withal, this tale of a bored executive who becomes a street preacher, then a rock star, and finally a demagogue teetering on the edge of a Presidency that will destroy the nation, has its moments. Some of the camera compositions are quite striking (Edgar G. Ulmer was one of the cameramen.) some of the ideas really imaginative, and Carey himself is always compelling.

   I read an article once about Timothy Carey protesting in front of a film festival that wouldn’t show THE WORLD’S GREATEST SINNER. The author interviewed Carey at length, then went to the director of the festival for his side of things, and got the comment, “It’s a really bad film.”

   Which it is. But this is not the inept badness of GLEN OR GLENDA, nor the overblown malaise of… of… Oh hell, name any expensive flop. Carey fills SINNER with a passion only partly obscured by its own awfulness. The result is memorable.

   All too often SINNER screams its passion so loudly it provokes unintended laughs: As when Paul Frees narrates as the devil and we cut to unrelated stock footage of a snake in the grass. Or when Carey stalks into a Church to the overblown accompaniment of “Mars” from Gustav Holst’s THE PLANETS. Or when the stock footage simply doesn’t match. Or when… well suffice it to say, there’s plenty of it here.

   But in my memory of this fiasco, I keep coming back to the really fine and imaginative parts –and there are plenty of them, too. So I’ll just finish by saying it’s a film to approach, if at all, with a tolerant attitude and a wary eye.

   And don’t look for talent.