The Bells of St. Mary's (1945)

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.

Autumn Sonata (1978)

This is only the second Ingmar Bergman film I've seen in color, as well as the first with dubbing rather than subtitles, because that's what the DVD offered. The dub dialog is finely chosen, but the accents are so heavy that I didn't immediately realize it was English. Regardless, I could appreciate the advantage of not having to read the whole time, even if I had to remind myself not to get distracted by the slight disconnect between the words and the lip movements.

Famed pianist Charlotte (Ingrid Bergman, with the similarly named but unrelated director for once) visits her eldest daughter, Eva (Liv Ullmann), for the first time in ages. She is unpleasantly surprised to find her other daughter, Helena (Lena Nyman), living there too. Helena has limited mobility and apparently some sort of brain damage, her speech rarely intelligible to anyone but Eva. Eva's husband, Viktor (Halvar Björk), is also present but mostly keeps to himself, especially when Charlotte and Eva are conversing, since these two have considerable issues with each other.

Journey to Italy (1954)

For once, I went to an event with both a Meetup group and my dad. Why he declined to register as my plus-one or participate in the group discussion afterward, I may never know. The important thing for my review is that I had access to multiple relevant opinions, from people I know both well and not so well. And we all had pretty much the same reaction: "What?"

I'd seen a little of Roberto Rossellini's directorial work before. IMDb reports that I'd given an 8 out of 10 to Rome, Open City, but I can't remember a single moment from it. The Flowers of St. Francis has some appeal to the pious, but I'd be very selective in recommending it. I'd sooner rewatch either than JtI, making this an even bigger source of disagreement with the BFI list than in my last review. This time I can hardly fathom their thought processes.

For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943)

Here I am already reviewing another mid-'40s war movie in which the objective is to blow up a bridge. One key difference is that this one takes place in the Spanish civil war. Which doesn't stop the protagonist, Robert "Roberto" Jordan (Gary Cooper, at Ernest Hemingway's insistence), from being an American, present only on principle. Nor does it stop most of the Spaniards from being played by members of other nationalities, including quite a few born in the Russian Empire.

Nowadays, the film may be best remembered for its accidental influence on a bigger classic. It was somewhat important to the plot that Maria (Ingrid Bergman, also at Hemingway's insistence) had unusually short hair, as she was recovering from a shave of shame. Because of this, it was too late to redo certain Casablanca scenes in a timely manner, so "As Time Goes By" didn't get cut as planned.