The Bells of St. Mary's
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Movie Reviews of The Bells of St. Mary's
Movie Review: Bells of St. Mary's
Summary: 5 Stars
This movie was sent in a timely manor and in good condition. It is one of my favorites.Movie Review: A Beatific Bergman and a Relaxed Crosby Team for a Glowing Film of Yore
Summary: 4 Stars
There are few more beatific images than the youthful Ingrid Bergman framed by her nun's habit, looking skyward and glistening by candlelight at the end of this 1945 holiday classic. Director Leo McCarey has Bing Crosby reprise his role as Father O'Malley from their film from a year earlier, "Going My Way". Both really reflect the type of films that would more likely show up as TV movies on the Family Channel if produced today, but wartime audiences were obviously in need of such cinematic salves. What is reassuring is how the films remain affecting today if rather unabashedly sentimental.
What sets this one apart is Crosby's natural ease in the role (certainly far more muted than he is with Bob Hope in the Road movies) and having the incandescent Bergman portray Sister Benedict. The pacing is leisurely, as the first part of the film establishes the two stars in their roles before going into the slim plotline, which has the sister hoping a rich curmudgeon named Horace P. Bogardus will donate a new, expansive building to St. Mary's Academy to take place of the rundown old building that the sisters and the schoolchildren inhabit.
McCarey - along with screenwriter Dudley Nichols - both pioneers of screwball comedy, focus on the lightheartedness of the story until a couple of sentimental developments occur. The first has to do with a lonely student named Patsy, who comes to idolize Sister Benedict, to the point of intentionally failing to graduate in order to avoid going back home to her concerned mother and estranged father. The second involves Sister Benedict's medical condition which forces Father O'Malley to make a difficult decision about St. Mary's.
There are fewer songs here than in "Going My Way" - the title tune and another one, "Aren't You Glad You're You?", both sung effortlessly by Crosby and a Swedish folk song performed in a warm alto by Bergman. The soft-centered philosophical discussions between the two leads generate some interesting conflict though nothing that feels irreconcilable by the end. There are also some amusing scenes as well, for example, the kindergarten class unaffectedly improvising the Christmas play and Bergman showing off her pugilistic prowess to a boy beaten up in a fight.
While I much prefer Bergman in her more outwardly seductive roles ("Notorious"), I can see why people wanted so much to see her as the glowing embodiment of good during WWII, even though it is this image that was the harbinger when she was caught in an extramarital scandal with Roberto Rossellini five years later. Crosby always seems to be playing himself, which in this case, is a good thing. Henry Travers, forever Clarence to me from Frank Capra's "It's a Wonderful Life", plays Bogardus with appropriate stubbornness and compromised regret, and Joan Carroll, the least prominent of the Smith daughters in Vincente Minnelli's "Meet Me in St. Louis", gives a solid performance as the conflicted Patsy. This is an understandably well-loved film even if it runs a bit too long.
Movie Review: Sequel Time
Summary: 4 Stars
Ingrid Bergman looks lustrous, her skin aglow, as though they fed them nothing but cream in that convent. No wonder she turned a million little American boys onto Catholicism and boxing at the same time. Bing Crosby can't take his eyes off of her, and this gives the movie an interesting tension; to doubters I say that Leo McCarey could have hired any actress to play Sister Benedict--a Helen Hayes, an Ethel Barrymore. Or younger, it could have been Rosalind Russell. But instead McCarey just happened to hire the sexiest, most beautiful actress in the movies! You know he wanted those sparks. The two stars are said to have conducted a romance whenever they heard the word "cut." Who could blame them? McCarey's sets were generally easy-going affairs, with great catering and plenty of cocktails served twice a day. This was the last of Crosby's four 1945 pictures. They kept them busy in those days! (Besides which, of course, he was starring the whole time in his own Philco-sponsored radio program every week.) THE BELLS OF ST MARY'S was a step up in quality from his other 1945 efforts (except for THE ROAD TO UTOPIA, which has its own surrealist charm and serious fanbase). Bergman was similarly overworked, having just released SPELLBOUND as well as SARATOGA TRUNK (filmed earlier and delayed due to glut of studio releases during the war years). She was at the height of her beauty and fame, and it seemed she could do no wrong. The confidence of her portrayal of Sister Benedict underlines this.
The movie, a sequel to GOING MY WAY, lit up the box office and became the biggest hit of the year. However, Crosby felt he had gone to the well enough and declined to star in a third installment which would have matched Father O'Malley with an orphaned set of twins (his niece and nephew). Even in the 1950s when he could have used a hit, he told his manager he would never make a third O'Malley film.
Late in her life I asked Ingrid Bergman which was her favorite movie of all those she had made. She laughed. In Sweden? She named a film I did not recognize its title. With Rossellini? She said "Europa 51." In America? There were two, "Notorious" and "The Bells of St. Mary."
Movie Review: Warm & enjoyable but meandering film
Summary: 4 Stars
"The Bells of St. Mary's" (1945) is the follow-up to the multi-Oscar winner from 1944, "Going My Way." Both star Bing Crosby in one of his signature roles, Father Chuck O'Malley. In this aimless charmer, Father O'Malley replaces an ailing priest at St. Mary's school, where he has to contend with a batch of nuns lead by Sister Benedict (Ingrid Bergman). Sister Benedict is supposedly one tough cookie and a stickler for the rules, but we soon see that she's a softie, and Father O'Malley's light touch brings out even more of her humanity. They make a great pair, and all seems well at St. Mary's. The children put on adorable plays they wrote themselves, and the worst problem facing the school is a bully who is easily dispatched when Sister Benedict teaches one of her pupils to box. Well, there is one other problem - the school is decaying and they desperately need a new building. So Sister Benedict turns to the miserly Horace P. Bogardus (Henry Travers) who has just built a beautiful new facility across the street. Will she be able to convince him to help St. Mary's?
The plot of "The Bells of St. Mary's" is rather meandering and unfocused. Clearly, the movie exists primarily as a vehicle for Bing and Bergman, and they are very good together. Bergman's beauty shines through her nun's habit, and Bing gets to sing a few songs, including the Oscar nominated "Aren't You Glad You're You?" Predictably, the pairing was a major box office draw, and "The Bells of St. Mary's" grossed over $21 million dollars, making it one of the biggest hits of the 1940s.
Director Leo McCarey also helmed "Going My Way," and he certainly knew how to get laughs and tears from his audience (he would later direct the weeper, "An Affair to Remember"). He covered up the plot holes and meandering script with serious levels of cuteness and warmth. Indeed, even though the film is not explicitly about Christmas, it makes for a terrific holiday movie because of its warm tone. The movie received numerous Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Director (Leo McCarey), and Actor and Actress.
Movie Review: Old-Fashioned (Which Means Pretty Good)
Summary: 4 Stars
This was a just a plain, nice story, one of those kind I tend to favor simply because there are no "bad guys" yet the story is still interesting. Sometimes that's nice to see.
I expected Ingrid Bergman's character, "Sister Mary," from what the liner notes on the video box said, to be a sort-of villain portraying a hard-line rigid nun but that wasn't the case at all. In fact, in her several philosophical disputes with "Father Chuck O'Malley" (Bing Crosby) I sided with her because she made more sense than the too-Liberal priest who never wanted any misbehaving kid to be disciplined.
The story is a little unrealistic in that a strong-willed business tycoon would not abandon all his business plans and hand over a brand-new million-dollar (today it would be many millions) building to a church. However, it's nice to see!
These kind of old-fashioned films are almost collector's items today.