User Reviews

That's the mantra for the hilariously and hideously phony preacher played by Andy Kaufman, an evangelist far worse than Paul Sorvino from "Oh, God!". Looking like the Broadway version of Melvin P. Thorpe from "The Best Little WH in Texas", Kaufman has monk Marty Feldman kidnapped in order to help spread his word and bring in more moolah. Feldman has come from his Monastery to Los Angeles to try to find money to save his order, and ends up being used by a phony varination of Christianity. He realizes that even with a cheaper version of Kaufman as his friend (Peter Boyle), there are all sorts of phony creatures out there, and thanks to the help of a Hollywood prostitute (Louise Lasser), discovers how to deal with it.

I was surprised and delighted to find out that this flop comedy was much better than I expected it to be, having given bomb ratings to Feldman's next two films, "Yellowbeard" and 'Slapstick of Another Kind", and thought that this one would be as hideous. While there are a few moments that are eyebrow-raising and one or two that are offensive, I actually laughed quite a bit and found the film to be surprisingly sweet.

You get to see an exaggerated variation of what Hollywood Boulevard was like in the early 1980's, and a very funny Christmas extravaganza that will have you laughing hysterically at its tacky audaciousness. Richard Pryor has a cameo as Kaufman's big boss, barely recognizable, even in voice. This is one of the few parodies of Mel Brooks style comedies featuring actors from his ensemble and directed by one of them. In this case, it's Feldman who had some pathos to his performance so he's not just a zany pop-eyed fool. Perhaps he should have been the one doing these all along, not Gene Wilder. This is obviously not an attack on Christianity in general, but more about how it has been abused by phony showmen. Boyle scales every moment he's on screen, especially with his bus, disguised as a moving church.

'In God We Tru$t or Gimme That Prime Time Religion' ( 1980 ) was one of two movies ( the other being 1977's 'The Last Remake Of Beau Geste' ) written, directed and starring the much-missed British comic genius Marty Feldman. It opened to a hostile response from critics and public alike, causing Universal to terminate his five-picture contract, plunging him into near-suicidal despair. With 'Monty Python's Life Of Brian' having opened the year before, and America about to embrace the kind of materialistic values the film makes fun of by putting Ronald Reagan in The White House, its timing was unfortunate. Marty plays 'Brother Ambrose', one of an order of Trappist monks, who is asked by 'Father Thelonius' ( Wilfrid Hyde-White ) to leave the monastery and go to Los Angeles in search of big-time television evangelist 'Armaggeddon T.Thunderbird' ( Andy Kaufman ), founder of the Church of Divine Profit. The filthy rich Thunderbird has an office which is a copy of the Oval Office in the White House ( a sign on his desk reads: The Bucks Stop Here ). He also has regular conversations with 'God' - who turns out to be a computer known as 'General Operational Directorvator' ( voiced by Richard Pryor! ). Brother Ambrose must ask Thunderbird to pay off the monastery's mortgage. The first person he meets on his epic journey is seedy evangelist 'Dr.Sebastian Melmoth' ( the late Peter Boyle ), who drives a mobile church! Robbed by the preacher, Ambrose is left destitute. Until he meets a hooker with a heart of gold called 'Mary' ( Louise Lasser )...

This is a clever satire on the commercialisation of religion, in particular those charlatans who shamelessly exploit The Bible to line their pockets. There is not a jot of difference between Melmoth selling wooden crosses with a toy Christ affixed and Thunderbird urging his followers to hand over all their belongings because 'God is in hospital'. Mixing satire and slapstick can be a risky business, but here Marty ( and co-writer Chris Allen ) have miraculously pulled it off. Only occasionally does it get a little heavy-handed, such as Thunderbird's followers screaming "Seek! Find!" in such a way as to make it indistinguishable from "Sieg Heil!", but it does not harm the film too much. Feldman gives a delightful performance as the innocent 'Brother Ambrose', and is ably supported by Boyle, Lasser, and Pryor. I have never been a fan of the late Andy Kaufman, but his performance as the smarmy 'Thunderbird' is simply brilliant. He gets most of the best lines, including: !"If God had not intended for some people to be poor, then He would not have had The Bible published in paperback!".

Funniest moment - during Mass, the brake on Melmoth's mobile church slips, causing it and everyone aboard to go hurtling downhill into a river!

Second funniest moment - the wonderful climax which gives a whole new meaning to the phrase 'redistribution of wealth'!

Marty's next appearance on the big screen would be in 'Slapstick Of Another Kind' ( 1982 ), based on the Kurt Vonnegut book. Shortly after completing his scenes in Graham Chapman's ill-fated pirate spoof 'Yellowbeard' ( 1983 ), Marty died from a heart attack. His 'In God We Trust' co-star Andy Kaufman succumbed to lung cancer a year later. They may have gone, alas, but the film they made together lives on, and looks funnier with each passing year. In my view it deserves a major revaluation.

My memory may be a bit foggy as I haven't seen this movie in a while; so, if I get these wrong please feel free to correct them.

"Have you been celibate today?" ... "Yes, 4 times." ... "Good 5 would have been tantamount."

"All great things have 3 initials, IBM, IRS, GOD"

"This is the Grand Organizational Directiveator G.O.D."

This movie was excellent. It's hard to imagine anyone not finding anything funny in it.

I can see someone maybe finding it too slapstick at times or being, perhaps, a little upset that it makes fun of televangelists and organized religion; but, they had to know what it would be like going in (the title gives fair warning).

Bottom line, this movie is funny.

Btw, does anyone know where I can find this movie? I want to watch it again.

Marty Feldman's In God We Trust has no shortage of ideas, albeit that the commercialized, grotesquely monetized brand of modern religion makes them easy to come across: unfortunately, Feldman isn't much of a stylist, and struggles to wrestle the material into any kind of shape. He's a rather diffident leading man also, playing Brother Ambrose, venturing into an unfamiliar and mostly sleazy world in search of money to save the remote monastery in which he grew up: the film's humour runs from Ambrose heading for refuge to a place advertising "All Night Mass" and having to go running when realizing that the signage's last three letters had been temporarily covered up, to his constant resort to cold showers to dampen carnal urges toward the hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold who takes him in, to a temporary job nailing plastic Jesus figurines onto miniature crosses. The film lacks any sense of real engagement or relish, but it does luck its way into seeming mildly prophetic via Andy Kaufman's televangelist character Armageddon T. Thunderbird, who preaches self-righteously absurd sermons (God is in the E. R. and you're the ones that put him there) to an adoring and pliable crowd, easily whipped up into giving something eerily close to a Nazi salute, working every angle for his own financial advantage and planning to unveil a third political party which will carry him to supreme power - more than a few pre-echoes there of our own false prophet, including the hair (although from the neck down the styling is more evocative of Liberace). With more subtlety, Feldman's film might also have seemed to carry a warning about submission to technology, given that the closest thing to an active God in the film is a sentient but misinformed supercomputer (bearing the likeness of Richard Pryor), all too easily here reprogrammed onto the path of righteousness.