The Bells of St. Mary's (1945)

This follow-up to Going My Way (1944) follows essentially the same story template; but instead of the young priest taking over an old priest’s territory we get a male priest (Bing Crosby) taking over a parochial school and butting heads with a very young Mother Superior (Ingrid Bergman.)

Sounds good, huh?

Except that there is very little butting heads.

There is a very unclear item with a boy in a fight who’s been told to turn the other cheek, but with a fight in the presence of the priest the issue now becomes training him to fight properly, which for some reason Mother Superior comes to thinks handling it herself is a good idea.

I come from a Catholic school, and in fourth grade some of us were given boxing gloves in order to deal with aggressive impulses, (not me, though, I was a wimp.)

Father O'Malley is supposed to be unconventional, but I’ve never heard of a nun giving secret boxing lessons to a boy in order for him to not ‘be a sissy.’

The second big item is a single mom who asks her daughter be admitted, the nature of her personal life is also fuzzy and unclear… is she a prostitute?

But ultimately, it has revealed she was merely abandoned by the musician husband.

The young girl has emotional problems but nothing unsurmountable, and the problem becomes instead the fact that the priest interviews the mom, but keeps the interview and the personal details secret (!) so that Mother Superior is ill equipped to deal with the girl until, eventually, she gets the proper information.

And that is the extent of head butting.

It's a good thing those youngsters are mature enough to make up their own minds about it regardless of what the adult authority does.

This is a universe where solutions come regardless of what you do, or even if you do nothing at all.

It all sorts out in the end.

The third item is the financial dire straits of the school and the pressure from the man who would like to get the property in order to have a parking lot for the construction next door.

The nuns, on the other hand would like him to donate the new building for their school.

As charming as the film might be, the writers seemingly have no idea how the real-world works; how real businessmen behave; just what it is that priests do on a day-to-day basis; and what it is that happens administratively in elementary schools.

The movie deals mostly with details in between.

There are vague clues about the passage of time from scene to scene; we see preparation for the holidays, including Christmas (the films' most charming moment seems semi-improvised by non-actor children); at one point it is noted how long it takes a broken window to be replaced from which we surmise six weeks have gone by; and the film ends on graduation day.

But for example, immediately after being admitted we are told a girl is not doing well... I guess weeks have gone by.

The film might also seem to be a vehicle for the Bing Crosby character, but it becomes even more obvious in this chapter that the writers have no idea what to do with his priestly character (the only reason to have him is to withhold essential information,) and the focus instead becomes the dilemmas Mother Superior must deal with.

Where Going My Way humanized both Crosby and Fitzgerald's priest characters, this film humanizes Bergman’s nun character.

Some have alleged that the film is a love story, but my modern eyes see no such thing.

You could take out Father O'Malley and tell basically the same story with no problem.

The extents of paternalism on display are ridiculous, at one point a doctor suggests to the male priest that a diagnosis be kept secret from the adult nun ‘for her own good,’ and administrative decisions are taken which are logically misconstrued by her, and which only make matters worse for her.

It's not a long way from this to Yo, la peor de todas (1990).

Boy are praised when they fight well, because it's a tough world out there, and girls are given a pass whether they deserve it or not (mostly, they deserve it.)

At the very least the writers have the decency to have the priest do the right thing by the end.

This was nominated Best Picture, which says more of the times it was given it than of the deservedness of the film.

After the war audiences were looking for simple fluff that would have them exiting the theater with a good feeling.