Send Me an Angel

Film: The Bishop’s Wife
Format: Turner Classic Movies on big ol’ television.

For the last few years, every time that Christmas has come along, I have considered watching The Bishop’s Wife and have always run out of time, just never getting around to it. With the number of movies I have left on my Oscars lists, it’s unlikely that I’ll have anything left other than movies I can’t find next December, so if I wanted to watch this at a time when it would be topical, it was pretty much now or never. Fortunately, this is exactly the sort of film that gets played on Turner Classic Movies in December, so I recorded one of the instances and watched the film today after a holiday get-together with my family.

It’s easy to put this in the same sort of vague category of Christmas movie as something like It’s a Wonderful Life because there is a strong supernatural component here. Specifically, there’s an angel who shows up and drives the plot. That angel calls himself Dudley (Cary Grant), and he has appeared to assist Bishop Henry Brougham (David Niven), who is trying to build a new cathedral. Now, Brougham’s denomination is never stated as far as I know, but he’s clearly not a Catholic bishop because he’s married to Julia (Loretta Young) and they have a daughter named Debby (Karolyn Grimes).

Tell Me About the Rabbit

Film: Harvey
Format: Streaming video from Hoopla Digital on The Nook.

I’m not really sure how to explain Harvey to someone who hasn’t seen it. It certainly falls into the realm of screwball comedy, and is also a film that makes hay with the idea of the “funny drunk” in the main character. There’s also an odd darkness to Harvey that creeps in at the edges. It’s never really apparent when the film is playing, but in thinking about it afterwards, there are some moments that could easily take a dark turn played just a little differently. Fortunately, it sticks mostly to comedy, which is appropriate for a film about a man with an invisible rabbit has his constant companion.

Elwood P. Dowd (James Stewart) is the local eccentric of his home town. Part of this is because he likes nothing more than a martini in the local bar and thus indulges himself at every opportunity. The main reason, though, is his friend Harvey. Elwood describes Harvey as a pooka (or puca), a Celtic spirit that is sometimes mischievous but generally benign. Harvey and Elwood have been companions for years, and Elwood loves to introduce his friend to everyone he meets. The problem, of course, is that no one can see Harvey or interact with him in any way.

Better than the Shroud of Turin

Film: The Robe
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on rockin’ flatscreen.

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised at the number of Biblical epics that appear on the Oscars lists. There was a time when anything set in that era could almost guarantee a nomination or two, it seems. In that respect, The Robe’s presence shouldn’t be too shocking. There are even a few Biblical epics I like unabashedly. I enjoy Ben-Hur, for instance, and The Ten Commandments is surprisingly entertaining, even for a heathen like me. It seems like there’s one every other year in the 1950s.

The Robe, though, is completely overwrought as a film. I put it on a par with a film like Quo Vadis, a few good performances, but a very odd depiction of Christianity. A film like The Robe seems to have been made in no small part as a way to play in to the idea of Christian persecution. While plenty of Christians don’t live a life of paranoia, there is a set of them who like to think of themselves as under the threat of constant oppression.

Nun so Unworthy...

Film: Come to the Stable
Format: DVD from Geneseo Public Library through interlibrary loan on laptop.

I really should have known from the picture on the cover of the DVD case that Come to the Stable was going to be a rough ride. There are plenty of movies involving nuns that I like. That’s a good thing because there are a surprising number of nun-filled movies on my Oscar list. But there’s something about this picture that screams that Come to the Stable is going to be filled with a particular religious cheese, the kind that expects us to believe that miracles happens strictly from wishing really hard that something was so and that even the most hardened heart can be swayed by the application of earnest prayer.

And yes, that’s exactly what we’re signing up for here. One wintery night, two nuns arrive in the town of (of course) Bethlehem somewhere in New England. These are the Chicago-born turned French nun Sister Margaret (Loretta Young) and the awesomely named Sister Scholastica (Celeste Holm). They have come to Bethlehem by virtue of a series of events. During World War II, the sisters worked at a children’s hospital that fell in the path of a military battle. Through the awesome power of prayer (hereafter referred to in this review as the “Poweraprayer”) the hospital was spared shelling and the children who could not be evacuated survived. Because it was the Americans who spared the hospital, the two sisters have come to build a hospital in America.

Three Smart Girls

Format: DVD from Netflix on laptop.

I’ve had a couple of objections to films recently, so it’s mildly refreshing when I find one like Three Smart Girls that more or less demonstrates the other side of those rants. I complained, for instance, about people playing roles much younger than the actor’s actual age. In this film, Deanna Durbin plays a 14-year-old, but she was 14 or 15 when the film was shot. That works. I’ve complained about melodrama. Three Smart Girls has a large dose of melodrama in it, but it’s also a comedy, so it plays that for laughs. I find this still a difficult film to love, but it does enough right that it’s able to at least go down easily.

The biggest issue is that, once again from a film in the height of the Depression, it’s a rich white people problems film. Actually, it’s a precursor to The Parent Trap in a lot of ways. Three girls, Joan (Nan Grey), Kay (Barbara Read) and Penny (Deanna Durbin in her major debut), discover that their estranged father is about to be remarried. Their father has been estranged from the family for 10 years, meaning that none of the girls really know him that well and Penny barely remembers him. Nevertheless, since “Mummy” (Nella Walker) has carried a torch for 10 years, they determine to break up the impending nuptials and get their parents back together. Did I mention that the three girls live on their father’s money in Switzerland? Or that said father, Judson Craig (Charles Winninger) is a multi-millionaire banker?

One Hundred Men and a Girl

Format: VHS from Freeport Public Library through interlibrary loan projected on screen.

Frequent readers here may have noted that I get a lot of the movies I watch from a variety of libraries. Every now and then I request a film through interlibrary loan and it pops up in the form of a VHS tape. I no longer have a working VCR, which means that when I get a tape, I have to find a different way to view it. Fortunately, I can sometimes find a spare classroom and project the movie on a screen. As it happens, One Hundred Men and a Girl is one of those rare VHS films. It’s been sitting on my desk for a week or two waiting for me to get to it. Tonight, I finally got the chance to watch it.

I wasn’t really looking forward to this one, although I was pleased to note that it was really short. So I put it in and started to watch. It’s not a terrible film. It’s just not a great one. It seems like something far too lightweight to be considered for something like Best Picture. The story seems pretty textbook for the mid-1930s. It’s a baby step away from Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland getting the gang together and puttin’ on a show.

Music for Millions

Film: Music for Millions
Format: Turner Classic Movies on rockin’ flatscreen.

Music for Millions is a film I frankly can’t figure out. I mean, I kind of get it, but I also really don’t. There’s a plot here, although it’s a pretty sparse one. A great deal of this film exists specifically to give the audience a chance to hear some really good music played very well. Another chunk of the film exists specifically to allow Jimmy Durante the opportunity to be Jimmy Durante. The rest of it seems to be an advertisement for St. Christopher and Jesus.

Okay, I realize that from an atheist perspective that sort of thing is going to be annoying in the best of times, but in Music for Millions we’re essentially told that all you have to do to get what you want is pray really hard for it, and maybe give up something like ice cream as if you were having your own personal Lent. The bulk of this odious philosophy comes out of the mouth of the youthful Margaret O’Brien. O’Brien was disturbing as the pseudo-sociopathic Tootie in Meet Me in St. Louis, but in this film I actually loathed her.