We can't all be Orson Welles. We can't all create Citizen Kane as our majestic expression of ourselves. Some of us, if we created something, who knows what the hell it would come out to be. Who knows just what the message we'd get across would be.
So, actor Timothy Carey went ahead and created the movie he wanted to make. It wouldn't be the first and certainly not the last time that an actor created a vanity project, and of course with his own financing and his own control, he did an entirely "self-driven" film that had no filters, no other words put in about the story or anything.
The World's Greatest Sinner is an experimental film. Everything from the ground up feels highly experimental. The feeling of the film overall is a coked out, infested, bizarre alternative to traditional film. This movie feels 70's, 80's in it's approach. It feels a lot more like the film that would come out later, claiming to be "a throwback" but then would have things in it that were obviously modern. But, this is the authentic real deal, actually made in 1962, and therefore way ahead of it's time.
Timothy Carey plays Clarence "God" Hilliard. Clarence is a middle manager of no great worth, and decides to give everyone the day off. He's promptly fired, and that leads him on a self-indulgent journey to declare himself a god and start to preach on the streets about his beliefs. Driven most likely by his sheer weirdness, God Hilliard begins to attract followers, and in a Life of Brian-esque turn, the least likely person becomes someone of great importance.
I mentioned Citizen Kane in the beginning for multiple reasons. One of those reasons is that this film feels extremely close to the storyline in some ways. The proximity to one central person, and his raise to fame, and the fact we know little about him, felt all inspired by Citizen Kane. The character in both films is not especially likable, but has a certain undeniable charisma that draws people in, and we as the audience are struck with both anticipation and concern about what these people will do once they have the money or the fame which they seek.
The World's Greatest Sinner though takes a detour later down the line. As God Hilliard gains more power, we see more of the apparent corruption therein. We see him sacrifice some of the things he used to believe in for power. And we see, in the end, his own struggle with the title and the power he has given himself. The ending comes with a bit of an overly ambitious turn of events, and like that, 77 minutes in, it's all over, and you're left to wonder WTF this whole thing was.
In the end, I have no idea if this movie was good or not. There are surely some well done parts of the film: some good acting in parts, a cool soundtrack by Frank Zappa, with occasional nice photography, a charismatic and completely insane main character, and even way before it's time sexuality. Despite all this, it felt broadly unfocused, way underdeveloped, and I even got bored in the later third. It feels like they weren't quite sure where to take the story, and I think the ending is perhaps the biggest flaw in the story.
This feels like the sort of movie that would have gone forever if someone had just kept giving Timothy Carey money. I think 1000% that he would have just kept filming, and I also think that if he had done maybe 2-3 things different, this movie would be a huge cult phenomenon not only now, but even then. This has the seeds of something amazing in it, but somehow it got lost along the way. The stabs of greatness are all there, but...overall... meh? I'll give it 3.5.
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