What is The Bells Of St. Mary's?

''

The Bells of St. Mary's
original film poster
Directed by	Leo McCarey
Produced by	Leo McCarey
Written by	Leo McCarey Dudley Nichols
Starring	Ingrid Bergman Bing Crosby
Music by	Robert Emmett Dolan
Cinematography	George Barnes
Distributed by	Rainbow Productions Release, RKO Radio Pictures
Release date(s)	1945
Running time	126 min.
IMDb profile

The Bells of St. Mary's is a 1945 film which tells the story of a priest and a nun at a school who set out, despite their good-natured rivalry, to save the school from being shut down. It stars Bing Crosby, Ingrid Bergman, Henry Travers, William Gargan, Ruth Donnelly, Joan Carroll, Martha Sleeper, Rhys Williams, Richard Tyler and Una O'Connor.

The movie was written by Leo McCarey and Dudley Nichols, and directed by McCarey.

It won the Academy Award for Best Sound, Recording, and was nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Bing Crosby), Best Actress in a Leading Role (Ingrid Bergman), Best Director, Best Film Editing, Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture, Best Music, Song (for Jimmy Van Heusen (music) and Johnny Burke (lyrics) for "Aren't You Glad You're You") and Best Picture.

The character of Father Chuck O'Malley had been previously portrayed by Bing Crosby in the 1944 film Going My Way (for which Crosby had won the Academy Award for Best Actor).

The Bells of St. Mary's was remade for television in 1959, starring Claudette Colbert, Marc Connelly, Glenda Farrell, Nancy Marchand, Barbara Myers, Robert Preston and Charles Ruggles. It was directed by Tom Donovan.

The film has come to be commonly associated with the Christmas season, due most likely to the inclusion of a scene involving a holiday pageant at the school.

Synopsis

The movie follows St. Mary's new pastor, Father Chuck O'Malley (Bing Crosby), who often finds himself at odds with Sister Benedict (Ingrid Bergman), the nun who oversees and teaches at the school. Their ups and downs play out in relation to two students: a boy (Dickie Tyler) who is being bullied (Sister Benedict teaches him how to box and defend himself), and a troubled girl (Joan Carroll) whose parents long ago separated (Father O'Malley attempts to reconcile the parents). The rundown school is in need of a new building--in fact, the school is fighting to stay open--and the nuns have their eyes on a modern new office building going up next door, hoping its owner, the crotchety Horace P. Bogardus (Henry Travers), will see the light and donate it as their new teaching facility. Meanwhile, Sister Benedict's deterioritating health leads to complications between her and O'Malley.

Radio adaptations

There were two radio adaptations of The Bells of St. Mary's on The Screen Guild Theater radio program. Both starred Bing Crosby and Ingrid Bergman. They were broadcast on August 26, 1946 and October 6, 1947.

Trivia

• Going My Way was written by McCarey after The Bells of St. Mary's, and the former was originally meant to be a sequel to the latter.
• In the film It's a Wonderful Life, the cinema that George Bailey (James Stewart) runs past in the penultimate scene is showing The Bells of St. Mary's. The actor Henry Travers starred in both of these films.
• In The Godfather, Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) and Kay Adams (Diane Keaton) are at the cinema watching this film when Michael's father Don Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando), is gunned down. Later Kay asks Michael if he would like her better if she were a nun, then if she were Ingrid Bergman.
• In The Magdalene Sisters this innocent film is shown in a sinister setting when it is watched by the nuns and the inmates. The nuns watch in rapture recalling the selflessness and glory of their own devotion to Christ. The inmates who are the victims of the nuns' cruelty and hypocrisy watch in bemused uneasy silence.

External links

• The Bells of St. Mary's at the TCM Movie Database