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 film actually won the Oscar for Best Documentary in 1972 and profiles former child evangelist Marjoe Gortner as he re-enters the seedy world of preaching across the US for money. Gortner is very open that he is doing it for quick cash and exposes the tricks of the trade. The filmmakers make sure to hammer this point home by juxtaposing shots of dudes counting stacks of money with sermons. I would have preferred more on Marjoe the man as they barely scratch the surface. For instance, he speaks briefly about the relationship with his father (also a preacher) but the filmmakers never dig deeper. The sermons/preachings highlighted are overly drawn out as well, running 20 minutes at a time which makes them tend to get repetitive. The end has Gortner contemplating a move into acting, something he was able to do for the better part of the 70s and 80s.

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.

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.