This was the first sequel ever to get an Academy Best Picture nod, but I hadn't known that going in. Bing Crosby as a priest in a Leo McCarey movie could have been a spiritual successor to the previous year's Going My Way, which, while probably the least popular Best Picture of the '40s, made a comfortable viewing for me. I was up for more comfort.
Father Chuck O'Malley (Crosby) becomes the...principal?...of an inner-city Catholic school for first- to eighth-graders. He takes a more casual approach than Sister Superior Mary Benedict (Ingrid Bergman), which leads them to lock horns on occasion, not least regarding whether to give leeway to failing eighth-grader Patsy (Joan Carroll) in light of her domestic difficulties. But they agree on one thing: Their building won't serve their purpose much longer. Sending everyone to another parish across town is hardly their first choice. What they'd really like is for CEO Horace P. Bogardus (Henry Travers) to give them his newly constructed office building next door for free. Considering Bogardus hates kids, this may take a miracle.
You can guess the gist of the ending. It doesn't take much effort on O'Malley's part, suggesting that the sisters' prayers really have been answered. Yet it's not as schmaltzy as it could have been. This is a drama first and foremost, and despite a few short songs whose performance makes sense in context, it doesn't normally get classified as a musical. It requires only a little more suspension of disbelief than average.
If you're looking for humor, it comes in small doses, often with Travers' expressions or O'Malley's bon mots. Two scenes in particular stand out. One involves first-graders rehearsing a Christmas pageant of their own creation, altering their lines each time and deviating a tad from tradition. OK, you might find that just cute. The other scene, with more plot importance, involves Sister Benedict teaching a boy how to box based on what she read in a book. I'm not entirely sure that's meant to be funny, but it is awkward enough to tickle me.
Why is she doing that? Because he's been physically bullied and unpopular, and turning the other cheek hasn't worked out for him. You might take exception -- or at least expect many a devout Christian to do so -- to the lesson herein. But on this matter, I side with her against O'Malley, who has the gall to congratulate the bully as if it were a legit fight. I think I'd put in a request for O'Malley's dismissal over that.
It's worth noting that O'Malley learns right after arrival that his predecessor had a nervous breakdown from dealing with annoying nuns. I suspect that this is a remnant of an earlier draft, because he doesn't come anywhere close to feeling that way about them. Even at their most contrary, neither he nor Benedict seems downright furious.
Religious authority figures aren't the only ones making questionable decisions, BTW. Dr. McKay (Rhys Williams), who tends to both Bogardus and Benedict, is awfully free with information that ought to be confidential, telling nonrelative O'Malley their conditions even when he doesn't ask. He also withholds personally critical information from a patient while telling it to O'Malley. I've seen similar things happen in other old movies, leading me to wonder whether it was common in the pre-HIPAA days or just a Hollywood myth.
From a dramatic perspective, the Patsy arc is what I like best. She has issues that many viewers will know all too well, and nothing about it strikes me as all that improbable. She's also key to my inclusion of the "Bechdel" tag, since we don't see much of nuns talking to each other.
TBoSM slightly outdid GMW in both sales and ratings. I haven't decided whether it's better overall, but it does promise to be more memorable. I'm still glad it didn't win instead of The Lost Weekend.
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