Director: Leo McCarey
Distributor: RKO Radio Pictures
Top Billed Actors: Bing Crosby, Ingrid Bergman, Henry Travers
Won 1 Oscar:
Best Sound Recording - Stephen Dunn
Nominated for 7 more:
Best Motion Picture - Rainbow Productions
Best Director - Leo McCarey
Best Actor - Bing Crosby
Best Actress - Ingrid Bergman
Best Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture - Robert Emmett Dolan
Best Original Song - Jimmy Van Heusen and Johnny Burke ("Aren't You Glad You're You")
Best Film Editing - Harry Marker
Plot: Father O'Malley takes his unconventional approach to the next church by trying to get a businessman to donate an entire new build to the school next door.
Distributor: RKO Radio Pictures
Top Billed Actors: Bing Crosby, Ingrid Bergman, Henry Travers
Won 1 Oscar:
Best Sound Recording - Stephen Dunn
Nominated for 7 more:
Best Motion Picture - Rainbow Productions
Best Director - Leo McCarey
Best Actor - Bing Crosby
Best Actress - Ingrid Bergman
Best Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture - Robert Emmett Dolan
Best Original Song - Jimmy Van Heusen and Johnny Burke ("Aren't You Glad You're You")
Best Film Editing - Harry Marker
Plot: Father O'Malley takes his unconventional approach to the next church by trying to get a businessman to donate an entire new build to the school next door.
The follow-up to the Best Picture winner from the year prior, The Bells of St. Mary's (1945) brought even more financial success to those involved. My previous entry claimed that The Lost Weekend (1945) was the movie of 1945. But if there was a challenger to that claim, it's this film. The top earner at the box office that year, this was RKO Radio's highest-grossing film of all time. To compound its financial success, it would garner the most nominations at the 18th Awards with eight, winning one. It's also the first sequel to be nominated for Best Picture as it returns the previous year's Best Actor and Best Director to continue the story of Bing Crosby's Father O'Malley, which also marks the first time an actor would be nominated for portraying the same character. Even leading lady Ingrid Bergman was an Oscar winner the year before for her role in Gaslight (1944); this is her third of three consecutive nominations for Best Actress. A fun connection to a future Best Picture nominee is that this is the film whose title is on the marquee in It's a Wonderful Life (1946) ("Merry Christmas, movie house!"), which also features Henry Travers in a supporting role.
If you enjoyed Going My Way, the sequel offers a lot of the same. Bing Crosby again manages to make religion relatable, likable, and with an emphasis on music. His voice soars and his positive and playful demeanor establishes the Father O'Malley character as one of the screen's all-time classics. Joining him is Ingrid Bergman, who contributes a lot of the same aspects, even down to singing a song. She has a way with the kids as the head sister. She particularly shines with her dilemma to pass or fail the girl who is taken in by O'Malley earlier in the story. She also shows how fun she can be when teaching a boy how to box or encouraging the first graders for their school play. It's this school play that got the most smiles from me. It's often said that this is a Christmas movie but this play is the only Christmas-themed scene. A student-run play (again, first graders) re-enact the night of Jesus' birth. The lead kid in the play explains every scene and it's about the cutest thing ever committed to celluloid.
As with most sequels, this did not live up to the original. Although it would earn a lot more money than Going My Way, the follow-up has a lot more shortcomings, mainly in the story. First of all, the intentions of O'Malley are immediately revealed - he comes to the school in order to facilitate a sale which would necessitate St. Mary's to move. This obviously would be heartbreaking to the sisters and students, so O'Malley schemes his way to a solution. I much prefer the way his intentions are revealed later on in Going My Way. I also take issue with how far-fetched this solution is. A lot of it feels like praying as hard as you can, and then manipulating the eventual savior of the school to give them what they need. A couple of other plot points that don't sit right with me is that a sickness is withheld from a grown woman and then that grown woman almost gets sent away without her knowledge of that sickness. We also see how respected and important Bergman's Sister Superior is throughout the film. There's a scene that shows her suggesting and then handing the graduation speech for O'Malley. A typical O'Malley moment would have been to let her speak at the graduation herself, especially with the knowledge of her being sent away shortly thereafter. You don't put Ingrid in the corner!
Overall, Bing Crosby and Ingrid Bergman positively delight with their positive, lively attitudes and musical interludes. Although the Christmas scene is to die for, a few shoddy plot points did not age well.
My Score: 6/10
If you enjoyed Going My Way, the sequel offers a lot of the same. Bing Crosby again manages to make religion relatable, likable, and with an emphasis on music. His voice soars and his positive and playful demeanor establishes the Father O'Malley character as one of the screen's all-time classics. Joining him is Ingrid Bergman, who contributes a lot of the same aspects, even down to singing a song. She has a way with the kids as the head sister. She particularly shines with her dilemma to pass or fail the girl who is taken in by O'Malley earlier in the story. She also shows how fun she can be when teaching a boy how to box or encouraging the first graders for their school play. It's this school play that got the most smiles from me. It's often said that this is a Christmas movie but this play is the only Christmas-themed scene. A student-run play (again, first graders) re-enact the night of Jesus' birth. The lead kid in the play explains every scene and it's about the cutest thing ever committed to celluloid.
As with most sequels, this did not live up to the original. Although it would earn a lot more money than Going My Way, the follow-up has a lot more shortcomings, mainly in the story. First of all, the intentions of O'Malley are immediately revealed - he comes to the school in order to facilitate a sale which would necessitate St. Mary's to move. This obviously would be heartbreaking to the sisters and students, so O'Malley schemes his way to a solution. I much prefer the way his intentions are revealed later on in Going My Way. I also take issue with how far-fetched this solution is. A lot of it feels like praying as hard as you can, and then manipulating the eventual savior of the school to give them what they need. A couple of other plot points that don't sit right with me is that a sickness is withheld from a grown woman and then that grown woman almost gets sent away without her knowledge of that sickness. We also see how respected and important Bergman's Sister Superior is throughout the film. There's a scene that shows her suggesting and then handing the graduation speech for O'Malley. A typical O'Malley moment would have been to let her speak at the graduation herself, especially with the knowledge of her being sent away shortly thereafter. You don't put Ingrid in the corner!
Overall, Bing Crosby and Ingrid Bergman positively delight with their positive, lively attitudes and musical interludes. Although the Christmas scene is to die for, a few shoddy plot points did not age well.
My Score: 6/10