"[6] Variety wrote "The absence of sustained dramatic friction and a reluctance to grapple with conflicts and climaxes in visual terms results in an aura of absolute serenity and a characteristic of ponderous verbosity that may be true in spirit, tone and tempo to the tale of supreme devotion being told, but is unlikely to prove sufficiently palatable to modern audience tastes.

"[7] Philip K. Scheuer of the Los Angeles Times stated "The treatment is reverent and apparently unusually faithful to history, the color and CinemaScope production often eye-filling and the performances, while hardly exceptional, will hardly raise dissent.

"[9] Harrison's Reports gave the film a grade of "Fair" and wrote that "Catholics and those strongly interested in religious themes will be about the only ones deriving much satisfaction from this CinemaScope-Color account of the life of St. Francis.

"[10] The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote "With its lepers, its desert rendezvous with a sheik and its deep-seated bitterness between the hero and his irreligious rival, this expensive slab of hagiolatry might well be described as Ben-Hur without the chariot race.

As it turns out there is precious little action or dramatic friction of any kind (Piero Portalupi's camera studiously avoids every challenging incident), only a ponderously serene screenplay and a stolidly passionless cast directed without a spark of imagination by Michael Curtiz.