The Trouble with Angels ** (1966, Rosalind Russell, Hayley Mills, June Harding, Binnie Barnes, Mary Wickes) – Classic Movie Review 9,172

The 1966 comedy film The Trouble with Angels stars Hayley Mills and June Harding as naughty schoolgirls running wild in a Pennsylvanian Catholic convent boarding school, where canny Mother Superior (Rosalind Russell) tames and civilises them.

Director Ida Lupino’s 1966 American comedy film The Trouble with Angels stars Hayley Mills and June Harding as Mary Clancy and Rachel Devery, young students and naughty schoolgirls let loose and running wild in a Pennsylvanian Catholic convent boarding school, the fictional St Francis Academy for Girls, where the canny Mother Superior (Rosalind Russell) tames and civilises them.

The Trouble with Angels is a cosy, icky, maudlin comedy, with a stodgy script by Blanche Hanalis (based on the 1962 memoir book Life with Mother Superior by Jane Trahey) that largely defeats the stalwart players. Both star Russell and director Lupino thrive best on tougher, more cynical material. However, there are nevertheless one or two bright spots and amusing moments.

Russell said: ‘I think it proves there’s a place for the family picture, the sort of picture you can take the kiddies to and which isn’t pure corn. I have been around nuns my whole life and I wanted to do justice with them.’

Also in the cast are Mary Wickes as gym teacher Sister Clarissa, Marge Redmond as math teacher Sister Liguori, Binnie Barnes as Sister Celestine, burlesque performer Gypsy Rose Lee [Rose Louise Hovick] as Mrs Mabel Dowling Phipps, Camilla Sparv as Sister Clarissa, Dolores Sutton as Sister Rose Marie, Margalo Gillmore as Sister Barbara, Portia Nelson as art teacher Sister Elizabeth, Marjorie Eaton as Sister Ursula, Barbara Bell Wright as Sister Margaret, Judith Lowry as Sister Prudence, Barbara Hunter as Marvel-Ann, and Bernadette Withers as Valerie.

Also: Ronne Troup as Helen, Jim Boles as Mr Gottschalk, Kent Smith as Uncle George, Pat McCaffrie as Mr Devery Harry Harvey Sr as Mr Grisson, and Mary Young as Mrs. Eldridge, plus Jim Hutton appears uncredited as Mr Petrie, the principal of a competing school.

It was popular enough for a sequel: Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows (1968), in which Rosalind Russell, Binnie Barnes, Mary Wickes and Dolores Sutton all reprise their roles as nuns. Hayley Mills opted not to reprise her role.

The exteriors were filmed at St Mary’s Home for Children orphanage in Ambler, Pennsylvania, and on other locations, while the interiors were filmed in the Columbia studio in California.

It is Ida Lupino’s final theatrical feature as director and the 19 year-old Hayley Mills’s first film role after her Walt Disney teen comedy success. Her progressive protagonist in The Trouble with Angels is a non-Disney-style character, quite rebellious and seen smoking onscreen.

Talk about type casting! Marge Redmond went on to play a nun in the TV series The Flying Nun, which premiered the following year. Mary Wickes later played a nun in Sister Act and its sequel Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit). Portia Nelson had played a nun in The Sound of Music the previous year.

The Trouble with Angels runs 112 minutes, is released by Columbia Pictures, is shot by Lionel Lindon, and scored by Jerry Goldsmith.

Release date: March 30, 1966.

RIP versatile actress June Harding, whose film debut (already 28) in The Trouble with Angels made her a teenage rebel icon, who died on March 22, 2019, aged 81. She retired from filming in 1970 and took up painting.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 9,172

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