The first sequel to be nominated for Best Picture, The Bells of St. Mary's was released in 1945, just one year after Bing Crosby originated the role of Father O'Malley in Going My Way (the winner for Best Picture that year). I haven't yet watched Going My Way, but The Bells of St. Mary's doesn't seem to add up to a cohesive film to me. It's mostly just a series of sometimes unrelated, sometimes interrelated incidents that occur over the course of a year. It's a fun movie in many ways, but it's a rather inconsequential film to have been nominated for Best Picture during the last year of World War II.
As the film opens, Crosby's priest has just been transferred to St. Mary's, a parochial school that has been deteriorating rapidly. The school is in very bad shape, particularly the classrooms, and the Catholic Church has been considering closing the school and selling the property. Almost immediately upon his arrival, Father O'Malley clashes with the head of the school, Sister Mary Benedict, played by Ingrid Bergman, who wants to maintain order and discipline. He is a pretty lax disciplinarian, while she and the other nuns are more traditional (i.e., strict). But don't watch this film expecting to learn about any serious rifts within the Catholic Church over differing approaches to education. Their "fights" are all rather harmless in nature; nothing too serious is going to be debated or resolved here. For example, Father O'Malley is so filled with excitement at his new job that he lets the children have the first day off. Sister Benedict wonders what will happen to the children since their parents are at work. That's pretty much the depth of conflict for most of the film.
Well, that's not completely accurate. The primary dramatic tension revolves around whether or not the adjacent building being constructed by Henry Travers' millionaire businessman, Horace P. Bogardus, will be donated to the school, something Sister Benedict and the other nuns have been praying for. There are several scenes sprinkled throughout the film where Father O'Malley and Sister Benedict separately bring up the subject of the building to Bogardus. He wants to buy St. Mary's in order to tear it down and build a parking lot. He also has, perhaps unsurprisingly, a series of health problems brought about by the stress of dealing with architects and contractors and workers. You know that in a film like this he's going to relent and give his building to the nuns. However, so much of the film is devoted to other stories that even this plotline seems no more important or significant than the rest.
For me, the most entertaining scenes involve Sister Benedict teaching a young boy how to defend himself. Father O'Malley has broken up a fight between two boys, Eddie and Tommy. The priest seems especially proud of how good a fighter Tommy is, but the nun fears that praising the boys for fighting might influence them to continue with this inappropriate behavior. After she correctly guesses that O'Malley is trying to suggest that women like herself wouldn't understand--it's the old fear of the female influence turning boys into sissies that movies of this era were obsessed with--she buys a book on boxing at a sporting goods story (cute scene, by the way) and begins tutoring Eddie every day in her office. The kid even knocks her out during one of their practices. When he inevitably bests Tommy in a schoolyard fight, Sister Benedict glows with pride.
The most intriguing sequence in the film is also the most enigmatic. A young girl named Patsy (well, Patricia) Gallagher is enrolled at St. Mary's by her mother (played by Martha Sleeper). The mother had married a musician, and you know how unreliable those types can be. Just watch Crosby's face when the mother explains about the itinerant life of a musician; it's a clever inside joke. Anyway, the father abandoned his wife for a job in Cincinnati, not knowing she was pregnant with Patsy (played very well by Joan Carroll), and so the mother had to "do things" to support her child. We are never told what those "things" are in the movie. We only know that Mrs. Gallagher thinks Patsy would be better off if she weren't around her mother. The priest takes a personal interest in seeing Patsy succeed, sometimes to the frustration of her teacher, Sister Benedict, but you know that both of them have the girl's interests at heart. The father eventually returns, thanks to the intervention of Father O'Malley, but it's a difficult, awkward transition for the Gallaghers to feel like a true family.
There's also an interesting series of scenes involving Sister Benedict's health. She has, it turns out, tuberculosis in its early stages. What I found odd is that the doctor tells Father O'Malley but not Sister Benedict about this diagnosis. He also conspires with the priest to have the nun sent away to some place with a more arid climate so that she can regain her health. The doctor doesn't want her to know about the serious nature of her health problems, and he wants her to be secreted off to Arizona or somewhere without letting her even know why? To me, it seems almost like malpractice not to share this information with the patient. It also smacks of misogyny to think that a man can handle the news of an illness like this, but not a woman--even if it's her own health that is at risk. That's still shocking to me.
You might also have a moment of surprise when the students in the school recite the Pledge of Allegiance. The phrase "one nation under God" doesn't appear in this pledge. That's because those words were added in the 1950s during the era when the government was trying to find Communists in every arena of American life. The added words became a sort of loyalty oath, if you will. Since this film was completed in 1945, today's audiences will quickly notice that absence when the pledge begins. Just don't get riled up about some leftist Hollywood plot; know your history first.
Lest you think it's all serious subject matter, the movie also has a couple of charming moments. One of the most delightful is the play put on by the first graders. It's a retelling of the birth of Jesus, and it's a riot. Those kids seem to have a rather vague sense of what happens in the Biblical story, but they don't let such pesky issues as accuracy interfere with their play. A close second would be the early scenes where a kitten stumbles into Father O'Malley's hat while he's trying to deliver a serious speech to the nuns in his new parish. The nuns, though, can't pay attention to him and start to giggle and laugh. Even he has to acknowledge the humor of the situation when he learns the cause of their outburst.
I know what you're still thinking: Bing Crosby as a priest and Ingrid Bergman as a nun? Indeed. Bergman has the most glowing make-up of any nun I've ever seen, and Crosby's Father O'Malley behaves in decidedly un-priestlike fashion. Crosby wasn't really an actor, as this film clearly shows. He was just a guy who could sing well (he gets several opportunities here to demonstrate his crooning ability) and who could act very naturally on camera. He acquits himself nicely. Bergman, however, was one of the best actors of her era. She does get to show that she too can play a comic part--and she is funny--but this is a far cry from her work in Casablanca or Anastasia. Neither of these performers seems to have been challenged by the material. In fact, the entire movie feels as if it were rushed into production to capitalize on the success of the earlier film. Regardless, it's relatively harmless entertainment, nothing that couldn't be seen by audience members of any age.
Oscar Win: Sound Recording
Other Oscar Nominations: Picture, Director, Actor (Crosby), Actress (Bergman), Film Editing, Dramatic or Comedy Score, and Original Song ("Aren't You Glad You're You")
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