In 13th century Italy, Francis Bernardone, the son of an Assisi merchant, renounces a promising army career in favor of a monastic life and starts his own religious order, sanctioned by the Pope.
Francis of Assisi is a 1961 DeLuxe CinemaScope epic film directed by Michael Curtiz, based on the 1958 novel The Joyful Beggar by Louis de Wohl. The film starred Bradford Dillman, in one of his few sympathetic leading film roles, Dolores Hart and Stuart Whitman. Shot entirely in Italy, it was a box-office bomb.