HOLLYWOOD PRODUCERS NOW TURN TO GOP

New Zealand Listener, Volume 12, Issue 303, 13 April 1945, Page 18

HOLLYWOOD PRODUCERS NOW TURN TO GOP

THE SONG OF BERNADETTE (20th Century-Fox) GOING MY WAY (Paramount)

AVING adopted almost every expedient in their desire to attract money to the box office, Hollywood producers are now falling back, as many people in worthier circumstances have done before them, on religion as a means to salvation. Two notable results of this conversion are currently lining up crowds outside New Zealand theatres20th Century-Fox’s Song of Bernadette, and Paramount’s Going My Way, both of them trailing clouds of glory in the form of multiple Academy Awards., They are, however, only the spearheads of Hollywood’s new advance into the religious field. Granted that the motive behind these two productions was not so much concern for the customers’ souls as for their cash, both of them do nevertheless represent a major achievement. For one thing, Fox and Paramount were here boldly entering the most. controversial arena in human history; the more so as, although its application is intended to be wide, the religion dealt with in both films is of one particular brand. Indeed, many people, moved by sectarian prejudice rather than by logic, ‘will argue that the cinema should steer clear of this sort of subject-matter altogether; and Bernadette acknowledges some such difficulty when its foreword asserts that "for those who believe in God no explanation is necessary: for those who do not believe, no explanation is possible." My own view, however, is that the film producer is as fully entitled to use religious’ material as the author or the painter. In fact, if the cinema is to establish its claim to be an adult form of artistic expression, there is no corner of the human mind and heart into which the movie camera must not be prepared to pry. And while at other times an objective approach may be most desirable, I would think that if a film is going to enter the field of religious faith it will generally have a better chance of success if it shares and supports that faith. This may provoke sec- | tarian feeling and so cause censorship headaches, but generally speaking a film producer, like any other genuine artist, can only turn out his finest work when he believes urgently in what he is doing. % * % \V HEN Bernadette and Going My Way are examined and compared in this light, I think we can see one important reason why ‘the latter emerges as the better picture. Bernadette is certainly not the miracle which the theatre people would have us believe it is when they introduce it with that . vulgarly ostentatious foreword setting out all the | Academy Awards heaped upon the production (almost as if they were afraid to let the show starid on its own merits ‘and were saying, "You've jolly well got to admire this picture you're going to see: look at all the testimonials it has received"), But it is a sincere version

of Franz Werfel’s novel about the mira¢les at Lourdes, acted with commendable discretion and conviction by Jennifer Jones, who moves through the story with serene spiritual exaltation as the simple peasant girl, Bernadette Soubirous, who was so certain that she did see a "beautiful Lady" in a rubbish dump in 1858; by Charles Bickférd as the Dean of Lourdes, who was at first not so certain; and by a picked handful of other actors and actresses, There are certainly a few gaucheries, even a few crudities-for example, the practice of referring to Bernadette’s complaint as "azma," the rather peculiar Hollywood-French spoken by some of the characters, and the too-frequent use of Hollywood’s Heavenly Choir-but on the whole The Song of Bernadette is a very honest, reverent, and impressive piece of film-acting. If it is a less moving and less human film than Going My Way, that is partly, I think, because it is so deliberately objective in its approach to the subjectmatter. There is an earnest attempt to maintain a dispassionate balance between the various schools of thought which the affair at Lourdes brought into conflict: the sceptics are given almost as good a chance to state their case as the believers. This/is admirable in one way, and yet in another way I believe that the film’s air of detachment, its dramatic gentility, is mostly responsible for its failure to be epoch-marking drama. Because the director has tried to be neutral as between the two sides in the controversy, his main allegiance, intentionally or not, has been to the box office, For instance, I think that the Imperial Prosecutor, who is the leading sceptic in the story, should have been allowed to maintain his ‘upright attitude of honest doubt to the end, instead of being brought to his knees at the grotto of Lourdes in the closing scenes. This may have been what actually did happen. I don’t know. All I do know is that in the film it looks like pandering to popular sentiment. But the most spectacular example of this tendency, and the picture’s gravest fault, is that all of us in the audience are shown, not once but several times, the vision which appeared to Saint Bernadette alone. It would have been far more convincing if we had been left to imagine for ourselves what the vision was like from the expression on Berna-. dette’s face and from her subsequent description of the experience. But no, there is "the beautiful Lady" in person, a blonde in shimmering white robes with a blue girdle-like something off a chocolate box. If I seem irreverent in saying this, I am no more so than the producers in showing it. Such literalism may be commercially good, but it is artistically puerile, and not very religiously helpful either. ue Bo * HEN we come to Going My Way we are on a different plane altogether. There are trivialities and (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) banalities here too, and some errors of taste. But there are no visions, no conscious piety. In fact, the religious quality of the picture is incidental to, rather than implicit in, its theme. It might, of course, be said that there were fewer opportunities for this film to go wrong for the very reason that it is on a much less exalted level-a much more human and humdrum one-than Bernadette; because it deals not so much with faith as with works. Going My Way is the story of two Roman Catholic priests in a New York slum. Father Fitzgibbon (Barry Fitzgerald) is old, stubborn, unbusinesslike. His parishioners love him, but his parish is in debt, his church in disrepair. Father O’Malley is young, efficient, modern in his outlook and methods. Father Fitzgibbon does not know it at first, but the young priest has been sent by the bishop to supersede him and pull the church off the rocks. Since Father O’Malley is a crooner as well as a cleric, has been a baseball star (which appeals to the young toughs in the street), and is able to compose songs which a friend who is a star of the Metropolitan Opera (Risé Stevens) "plugs" for him dnd sells at a handsome price, he is able to solve his parochial problems with comparative ease. The street gangs are quickly converted into a choir and sent on tour to help the church funds. A wayward girl (Jean Heather) is satisfactorily married off to the son of the man who holds the mortgage on the church. Winning the confidence and friendship of Father Fitzgibbon is more difficult (and considering the young priest’s collegiate manners that is not surprising), but by the end of the film the old chap has been persuaded to play golf and has been reduced to tears (along with most of the audience) by being reunited with his ancient mother from Ould Oireland. ae % ,* IN the face of it, that story is sheer hokum. And not merely on the face of it either: the film goes all out for laughs and tears in the most unashamed way imaginable. In some sequences the sentiment almost drips off the screen. And yet it gets away with it superbly, because early everybody connecied with the show was not merely an artist in his or her own right but was also obviously engaged in something approaching a labour of love. Leo McCarey’s direction puts all the emphasis on the human personalities involved; his handling of the early scene in the church where the young priest "shouts" the old one to a candle makes it’a typical little masterpiece of reverent comedy. But the picture’s paramount asset is the team-work of Crosby and Fitzgerald. Their styles of acting are in complete contrast, yet one is the perfect foil to the other, Though it may seem like being wise after the event, I think I can claim to have suggested several times in the past that Bing Crosby is a good actor; a far better actor than he is qa crooner, though as a crooner he is better than most. Going My Way is a complete justification of that viewpoint; the few scenes in the film in which he croons are not unendurable, but they are the weakest parts of it. Yet surprisingly good

as Crosby is, he is of course left miles behind in technical ability by Barry Fitzgerald, who is the star of the picture in fact, if not in the credit titles. Fitzgerald’s performance as Father Fitzgibbon is probably the funniest, wittiest, and most endearing portrayal of old age that we have ever seen on the screen. Because Going My Way is concerned with human relationships rather than with experiences of the spirit, it is outwatdly a much less religious film than Bernadette. But I think only outwardly: its wery humanity seems to me to give it a more valid and certainly a more universal appeal. At any rate I hope you will see both films, for both are exceptional.