The Bishop's Wife (1947)

Sometimes when you watch a movie that's grounded in fantasy, or perhaps just any movie, you have to set aside your critical thinking skills so that you can just be swept up in the joy that the movie presents. Such is the case with The Bishop's Wife, which was nominated for Best Picture in 1947. It's a Christmas movie, actually one of two Christmas movies nominated that year, the other being the classic Miracle on 34th Street. I'm not usually fond of Christmas movies (or even Christmas music, as you can read on my other blog), but this one has such charm that you can't help but smile as you watch it.

The main reason for the movie's success is Cary Grant. He plays an angel named Dudley who comes to Earth to answer people's prayers. An Episcopal bishop, played by David Niven, thinks Dudley is there to help him build his new cathedral. Dudley, however, quickly seems more interested in helping the minister's wife, played by Loretta Young. The bishop's wife (hence the title) has been feeling increasingly distant from her husband, whose thoughts of late seem to be too focused on raising money for "his" glorious cathedral. For the next hour or so, Dudley makes remarkable things happen, bringing happiness to almost everyone he encounters, save (of course) for the bishop, who begins to suspect that his wife is becoming too enamored of Dudley.

Grant, of course, makes it easy to see why even the maids and cabdrivers and everyone else feel better around him. He displays such optimism, such a sense of vitality, that you couldn't help but feel happier when Dudley talks to you. He can make Christmas trees light up on command, he can make a bottle of sherry continue to refill itself, and he even can make a group of boys who'd rather be outside playing all show up for choir rehearsal. Grant...well, Dudley can apparently do anything. I was never that fond of Loretta Young as an actress, to be honest, and I didn't think she was particularly attractive either. But even she glows here, undoubtedly because for the first time in a while, someone is paying attention to her, just her, and it doesn't hurt that the someone is Cary Grant. Watch the two of them (well, the three of them if you include their cabbie) ice skating, and you'll see what I mean. It's one of the most magical sequences in this enchanting movie.

The supporting cast is great too. Elsa Lanchester plays one of the maids, and she's terrific, so warm and funny, a far cry from The Bride of Frankenstein. Monty Woolley plays a professor who's an old friend of the bishop's family, and in my opinion, he does as good a job in this movie as he did when he starred in The Man Who Came to Dinner. Gladys Cooper steals almost every scene she's in as a rich widow who's trying to assuage a guilty conscience by dedicating a chapel in the new cathedral for the husband she never truly loved. And James Gleason, who plays Sylvester the cabdriver, brightens up the screen whenever he's on; you look forward to each of his brief appearances.

It would be easy to be cynical about movies like this. Of course, they are completely unrealistic, and no one ever truly behaves this way, and it's stretching the bounds of possibility to even think that such stuff could happen, etc. Yet I found myself completely immersed in what happened to these characters. It isn't cloying or sappy or any of the other things often associated with Christmas movies. It also isn't heavy-handed about religion despite its focus on bishops and cathedrals and angels. It's just pleasant fun. That's one of the signs of a great film. If it can make you forget for a couple of hours almost everything else going on in the world, you know you have a winner.