After disappointing Julia once again by cancelling a promised family outing for more meetings, Henry despairingly prays for guidance. Enter Dudley (Cary Grant) an angel sent to help, although not quite in the way Henry imagined. While Henry continues playing nursemaid to the rich donors, Dudley spends time snowball fighting with Debbie, taking Julia to visit the old parish and church, and ice skating among other things. As Dudley charms everyone around him, Henry (the only person who knows he's an angel) grows increasingly frustrated and jealous as he sees his wife regain her smile, and his daughter eagerly listening to Dudley's stories. While Henry stews, Dudley finds himself enjoying spending time with Debbie and Julia... perhaps a little too much.
The Bishop's Wife is a Christmas movie from 1947 starring Cary Grant, David Niven, and Loretta Young. Niven plays Bishop Henry Brougham, who has become obsessed with building a great cathedral. To do this, he requires a lot of donations from wealthy parishioners, several of whom have very definite ideas about what the cathedral should look like. To ensure their cooperation- and financial support- Henry must massage their egos and frequently agree to their ideas, regardless of how crass they are. What with all this running about, having committee meetings and kissing up to donors, as well as his other responsibilities, Henry is spending little time with his wife Julia (Young) and his young daughter Debbie. Julia is unhappy and lonely. Not only does she see little of Henry, when he is around he's always tired and stressed, not the warm, fun-loving man he was before. Also, she misses their old parish where they served before Henry was elevated to bishop: a modest church in a poorer section of town where she was involved in the lives of their congregants and felt needed and wanted. She has little in common with the wealthy people she's surrounded by now, who mostly regard her as a non-entity. After disappointing Julia once again by cancelling a promised family outing for more meetings, Henry despairingly prays for guidance. Enter Dudley (Cary Grant) an angel sent to help, although not quite in the way Henry imagined. While Henry continues playing nursemaid to the rich donors, Dudley spends time snowball fighting with Debbie, taking Julia to visit the old parish and church, and ice skating among other things. As Dudley charms everyone around him, Henry (the only person who knows he's an angel) grows increasingly frustrated and jealous as he sees his wife regain her smile, and his daughter eagerly listening to Dudley's stories. While Henry stews, Dudley finds himself enjoying spending time with Debbie and Julia... perhaps a little too much. I hadn't actually watched The Bishop's Wife before... not sure why, because I love most of the actors in it. I guess I just never got around to it, being busy watching so many other movies around Christmas. I had, years ago, watched the anemic remake The Preacher's Wife starring Denzel Washington and Whitney Houston which was eminently forgettable- unfortunately, since I like Denzel quite a bit. The Bishop's Wife is much better, as originals generally are. The debonair factor is off the charts, with both Cary Grant and David Niven starring. Though Niven has had to tone it down quite a bit as he is playing a stodgy bishop. In any case, it's impossible to compete with Grant in the suave department, so best not to try. Loretta Young is also quite good as the titular Bishop's wife, and they found a kid to play Debbie who isn't grating as so many young actors are... she looked familiar, but it was only after I heard her voice that I realized she was also ZuZu from It's A Wonderful Life. There are also a number of character actors in the film who will be familiar to anyone who habitually watches old movies, such as Elsa Lanchester and James Gleason. Monty Woolly also shows up as a curmudgeonly but good-hearted professor. The boys' choir is also the same one which appeared with Bing Crosby in Going My Way. The movie is based on a 1928 book by the same name, written by Robert Nathan who is perhaps better known for producing Portrait of Jeannie. I haven't read the book, so can't say how closely the film follows its source material; it is however, as mentioned, a pretty good movie. While not packing the emotional punch of It's A Wonderful Life, there's plenty of humour and feeling in The Bishop's Wife- and a solid message as well. Henry's determination to build a cathedral is perhaps admirable, but his obsession with it has caused him to lose his way. He is neglecting his wife and child, and also compromising his principles in order to placate one donor in particular, who is more interested in having the proposed cathedral be a monument to her late husband than to the glory of God. When Dudley shows up, he incites Henry's resentment by modelling how the bishop should be behaving: spending time with his family, and being more concerned with the people of the parish rather than the size of the building they worship in. At one point Henry confronts Dudley about his having talked a wealthy patron into donating her money to feed and clothe the poor rather than to the cathedral fund, and Dudley bluntly points out that he prayed for guidance, not for a building. There's a lot of truth in this: if we pray for God's leading, we should be prepared to possibly be led in directions we didn't plan, and ways we might not particularly be comfortable with. In the end, the direction Dudley is pointing Henry in is a healthier, happier one in which he realises that true success is found in being a good husband, father, and shepherd to his church, not in building a huge cathedral for reasons which are less about God than about ego.
Comments
|
About MeI'm a lover of good books, classic movies, and well-written shows (as well as some pretty cheesy ones, to be completely honest). Categories
All
Archives
March 2024
Fun SitesOdds & Ends |