Rewind film: The Keys of the Kingdom, directed by John M. Stahl (1944)

The Keys of the Kingdom
Gregory Peck, Thomas Mitchell, Vincent Price
Director: John M. Stahl

The week before Hollywood leading man Gregory Peck died in 2003 at the age of 87, the American Film Institute named the character Atticus Finch - the dignified, small-town lawyer that Peck played so brilliantly to win a best-actor Oscar in 1962's To Kill a Mockingbird - as the greatest movie hero of all time.

The role was the highlight of an illustrious career, with Peck's forte being quietly courteous, empathetic men with a social conscience. Though he occasionally strayed - taking the role of a cruel gunslinger in Duel in the Sun (1946) and Nazi doctor Josef Mengele in 1978's The Boys From Brazil - it's arguable that Peck's second Hollywood role, as idiosyncratic Catholic priest Father Francis Chisholm in 1944's The Keys of the Kingdom, set him on the path of righteousness, as well as his first Oscar nomination at the age of 28.

The Keys is largely presented as a single, extended flashback with occasional narration from aged Chisholm's journals, and recalls his seemingly unappreciated life. The story begins with Chisholm as a boy (Roddy McDowall) in Scotland. Orphaned by anti-Catholic violence, he eventually enters the priesthood, despite the fact that his best friend is a hard-drinking atheist doctor, and that he has issues with the Catholic Church's claim to have a unique role in salvation, among other subversive views.

Failing in his calling at home, Chisholm is sent to China's hinterland as a missionary in the first decade of the 20th century. He refuses to accept into his flock "rice Christians" (locals who will only join the congregation in return for payment), and endures much harassment as a result.