The Bells Of St. Mary's (1945)
Going My Way dominated the Oscars in 1944 and more importantly, it made a lot of cash at the box office. Thus, in 1945, The Bells Of St. Mary's was unleashed on an unsuspecting public. It went on to be the top grossing movie of 1945, but it didn't quite dominate the Oscars like the first rock-and-roll-priest flick did. Oh, it got eight nominations, but it only brought home one for Best Sound Recording. I guess that means that the movie sounded like a good idea. But Ingrid Bergman won a Golden Globe for her work in the film. Remember the 1945 Golden Globes?
In any event, Bing Crosby returns yet again to his role as an out of control, play by his own rules, stick it to the man priest, Father O'Malley. O'Malley is the guy the Church sends in when everyone else has failed! He's their final option! This time, all our souls are saved!
In this tale, O'Malley is appointed interim commissioner of St. Mary's, a parochial school where things are way sucky. Bing arrives and the housekeeper informs him that the last priest got carted off in an ambulance or something because the nuns ran roughshod all over his candy ass. She tells Bing to watch it because these nuns have been doing things their own way for so long and there isn't anybody that can stand against them! These nuns have never been stronger and the priests? Never weaker! Bing just sort of smiles that easy grin of his, that seems to say, "I'll bet I can sing my way out of this one!"
Bing meets the nuns and the leader of this group is Ingrid Bergman, who goes by the moniker of Sister Benedict. It seems that Benny thinks that Father O'Malley is going to play by her rules when it comes to running the school. Apparently she skipped the first movie in this series because it she hadn't, then she would know that O'Malley has a lot of new-fangled, crazy ideas that just might be crazy enough to work!
O'Malley listens to Benny's prattle about something or other (Bing and I didn't really pay much attention to it) and O'Malley keeps his winning smile plastered on his face like some kind of death mask. Then he gets down to work whipping the school into shape. First thing he does is to try to get over with the kids since he knows he's going to have run ins with the nuns no matter what he does.
At the beginning of the school day he announces to everyone that there would be...a holiday! No school! No school! No school! This, of course gets a huge pop from the kids and lots of cheap heat with the nuns. Sister Benny immediately tells him that the kids are going to get into "mischief" and that O'Malley was responsible if the kids went home and played video games until they felt like coming back and shooting everyone.
O'Malley no sells her comments and says something along the lines of, "yeah, I guess I am" which became the catchphrase of henpecked priests all over the country back in 1945. Then his mouth goes into overdrive and starts to talk about how when he was a kid and had days off of school he would go to the old swimming hole and hang his clothes from a hickory limb and that the last guy out of the swimming hole got his clothes tied into knots. By now, both Sister Benedict and I were wishing that Bing had given himself the day off as well.
As you may have surmised, O'Malley hasn't been called in just to roust a few frigid broads and play up to little Catholic punks. No, these are dangerous times for venerable old St. Mary's! It seems that there is a cold hearted rich guy who is building a big factory next to St. Mary's and covets the land St. Mary's sits on for a parking lot. He wants them to sell out. And if they don't? Don't worry, since he's a rich old coot, he's got a master plan so diabolical, the devil himself would blanch!
It seems that the old windbag is also on the city council or zoning board or PTA or something and that organization could condemn St. Mary's, force them to tear it down, and then make them pay for the cost of doing so! You know what O'Malley does when the old dude cuts that promo on him? He smiles and says, "I'll have to think about it." I like to think that whenever he smiles and says something benign like that, that he just ripped a silent but deadly ass burp!
The nuns have their own plan though! Their plan is of course completely idiotic and makes no sense, meaning it will eventually come to pass. Their strategy is to get the old guy to give them his brand new building so they can use it for a new and improved St. Mary's. Bing and I are kind of looking at them and thinking, "Okay, that's an interesting plan, but we do have a question: Are you nucking futs?" The nuns not only have a plan, the also have a way to put it into action. How? Prayer! Cue eye roll...now!
Now this heavenly slice of dog doo runs a very ungodly 126 minutes and everyone realizes that this means extra padding is going to have to be ordered to slow the action down. Back in 1945, you didn't want the audience to get overexcited by packing all the action in under two hours. Unfortunately, this film follows the formula of the first one in that regard. They introduce several unrelated and undeveloped subplots. Invariably these are designed to showcase Bing's caring and problem solving abilities which mainly consists of him giving simple and very bad advice and by crooning and playing the piano.
These little side stories are so banal and bland and feature actors so ugly, that you're ready to take the wrecking ball to St. Scary's yourself. One involves Bing finding a father who deserted his family 13 years ago in Syracuse. He does it in about five minutes. "I just looked him up in the musician's guild," he explains to the stunned wife.
Then there's plot about the wife's daughter who's fails the eighth grade. Sister Benedict flunks her ass and Bing says she should just pass her anyway. Benny goes, "well, why should we have grades at all then?" And Bing says, "yeah, we shouldn't have grades." Remember, he's the Church's final option!
Basically, these pointless episodes do nothing but water down the narrative thrust of the whole affair. Those little stories may have been beneficial if they could have been used to develop the relationship between Bing and Benny. The problem is that the movie wants to have this be one of those deals where the characters kind of squabble, but only because the really love one another and eventually they see eye to eye and check into the honeymoon suite. The obvious problem here is that there isn't any honeymoon suite in the rectory. So all that tension between the guy and girl is squandered. I can put up with a lot of monkeyshines if I can root for a couple of kids to get together, but if they're just mooning over each other because some old firetrap is going to be torn down? Don't care.
The other major problem with this movie is the payoff comes about 90 minutes in and just isn't credible. The old guy has heart trouble you see. Bing tells old guy's doctor that he can lick the heart trouble by doing good deeds. His doctor tells old guy this. Old guy pretty much then believes it and hands over his building to the church. If you're making a 126 minute movie about saving some damn church, you need a little bit stronger climax than that. After a lifetime of being a skinflint, this guy just hands it over one day? No wonder Bing was smiling the whole time. He must have peeked at the script and seen that it was all going to be nothing but cake.
But wait! New crisis! The lovely Sister Benny has a touch of TB and has to shipped out to a dryer climate. But no one wants to tell her because of some stupid reason. So she thinks that Bing fired her ass because they couldn't get along and she's leaving and they're all teary eyed and she's walking off the set when Bing calls her back! Sister! I didn't fire your ass because it had a stick up it! I fired it because you have TB! And she turns on the waterworks and thanks Bing because she couldn't bear the thought that he made her leave because he didn't like her, since she loved him and all. Oh, wait. I mean, since she loved the school and God and all. And as if to prove how great God really is, there was no third film in this series! Thanks Big Guy!