The World's Greatest Sinner

The World's Greatest Sinner is a 1962 underground film written, directed and starring the character actor Timothy Carey. The self-financed film tells the story of an average man, Clarence Hilliard (played by Carey), who quits his day job as an insurance salesman and forms a rock band. Finding that he can whip crowds into a frenzy with his wildly unhinged rockabilly performances, Clarence takes advantage of the attention by turning his fanbase into a political party and eventually a religious cult based on the premise that every man is a god. Ironically, Clarence finances the cult by graphically seducing elderly widows out of their life savings (The film is noted for its many sequences of Timothy Carey making out with old women). The more powerful Clarence becomes, the more egomaniacal and detached from reality he grows, eventually insisting upon being called God with a capital "G" (literally-- "God Hilliard") and having his followers worship him as such. Soon he personally challenges the God of the Bible to prove that Clarence himself is not the true Almighty. God obliges him.

The World's Greatest Sinner has never had an official release, though it has aired on the Turner Classic Movies basic cable channel. Martin Scorsese is one of the film's supporters, and has selected it in the past as one of his favorite Rock and Roll films of all time.

The film features a score composed by a young pre-Mothers of Invention Frank Zappa. At about the same time, Zappa made a memorable appearance on The Steve Allen Show, playing "a bicycle concerto" by plucking spokes and blowing through the handlebars. In the interview portion of the show, Zappa talked briefly about the movie and his soundtrack, even though the general public wouldn't have the opportunity to see the film he was talking about for another 50 years.

External links

• The World's Greatest Sinner at the Internet Movie Database
• God Hilliard For President (TCM's Movie Morlocks)