The Bells of St Mary’s **** (1945, Bing Crosby, Ingrid Bergman, Henry Travers) – Classic Movie Review 3130

Producer-director Leo McCarey brings Oscar-winning Bing Crosby quickly back for his heartwarming, sweet but not sickly 1945 follow-up to Going My Way (1944), with Father O’Malley (Crosby) now melting away the prejudices of chirpy Sister Superior Benedict (Ingrid Bergman).

Again, the movie was very popular but this time Oscar glory evaded it with only one Academy Award for Best Sound (Stephen Dunn) after eight nominations. However Bergman won Best Motion Picture Actress at the Golden Globes in 1946 and the New York Film Critics voted her the year’s Best Actress, though that was for Spellbound.

In McCarey’s fresh story with a new setting, Crosby starts a new job at a dejected, run-down big-city Roman Catholic school, where he engages in friendly rivalry with Sister Benedict and persuades a benefactor, Horace P Bogardus (Henry Travers), to endow a new building to extend the school.

The two stars’ seemingly effortless charisma in the most graceful, polished performances, Dudley Nichols’s supremely confident screenplay and McCarey’s carefully professional handling and polished production boosted it again into the year’s number one slot at the box office.

Crosby sings Jimmy Van Heusen (music) and Johnny Burke (lyrics)’s Oscar-nominated song ‘Aren’t You Glad You’re You?’ and the title song.

Also in the cast are William Gargan, Ruth Donnelly, Rhys Williams, Una O’Connor, Eva Novak, Joan Carroll and Martha Sleeper.

Going My Way (1944) and The Bells of St Mary’s (1945) were both the top-grossing films in the US in their release years, the first film and its sequel to achieve this.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 3130

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