When I first saw this movie, it reminded me of the time our mother sent my brother and I outside in the dead of winter night. We were armed with pots under the street lamps collecting fresh snow that she would add vanilla extract to in order to make us ice cream. That how this film feels to me. We first see Sister Margaret and Sister Scholastica trudging over a sloping snow covered hill towards some destination under a starry sky. There is cold in the air and yet the scene exudes warmth. The two nuns, bundled against freezing temperatures, tread with lighthearted determination and appear certain that they will arrive at their destination.
Nowadays, I do not think you could make ice cream from fresh snow without concerns about pollution and perhaps ingesting toxins of an unknown nature from the environment. I also do not think you could view a scene of two single women walking alone in an open field in the world of today without harboring some concern about their safety and welfare. Perhaps the wholesome, benign veneer has been snatched like a heated blanket from the frosty toes of Life. You would not think so settling down to watch this film.
The sense that the sisters are coming from an openly spiritual community and arriving under the aegis of some kind of divine guidance is quite palpable. Although I am hard put to recall seeing nuns wearing lipstick, the unusual spiritual sensitivity you find in Loretta Young's face and the hopeful sincerity that you find in Celeste Holm's aspect convinces the movie viewer of their goodhearted spiritual authority. The expectation of inevitable success in their mission here in Bethlehem ever appears unflappable to outside influences coming from the world of Man.
This is essentially a spiritual fairy tale revolving around several kernels of truth. Elsa Lancaster as Amelia Potts, a painter of religious pictures, receives the Sisters with a mystified skepticism. Similarly Hugh Marlowe, as songwriter Bob Mason, accommodates their needs with pained annoyance. But their presence in this New England town reveals intriguing strands of synchronicity between all the major characters. Dooley Wilson shines as Anthony James, helping the sisters out with their transportation needs, and Thomas Gomez as Luigi Rossi, comes across as a racketeer with a fugitive heart of gold, if you can believe that.
There is a compelling calculus of encounter that renders all the characters in a kind of Sacred Geometry of Dignity as the final scene resolves the story. You cannot help but feel that you have before you graphic evidence that man is basically good as the sisters achieve their ultimate goal in Bethlehem. Director Henry Koster puts all his actors to their marks with nary a misstep in musical counterpoint to Cyril J. Mockridge's rousing and inspiring score. While Bob Mason joins his little community with a face uplifted in prayer, wondering about the relationship between his latest popular song and a ancient Gregorian chant.
Nowadays, I do not think you could make ice cream from fresh snow without concerns about pollution and perhaps ingesting toxins of an unknown nature from the environment. I also do not think you could view a scene of two single women walking alone in an open field in the world of today without harboring some concern about their safety and welfare. Perhaps the wholesome, benign veneer has been snatched like a heated blanket from the frosty toes of Life. You would not think so settling down to watch this film.
The sense that the sisters are coming from an openly spiritual community and arriving under the aegis of some kind of divine guidance is quite palpable. Although I am hard put to recall seeing nuns wearing lipstick, the unusual spiritual sensitivity you find in Loretta Young's face and the hopeful sincerity that you find in Celeste Holm's aspect convinces the movie viewer of their goodhearted spiritual authority. The expectation of inevitable success in their mission here in Bethlehem ever appears unflappable to outside influences coming from the world of Man.
This is essentially a spiritual fairy tale revolving around several kernels of truth. Elsa Lancaster as Amelia Potts, a painter of religious pictures, receives the Sisters with a mystified skepticism. Similarly Hugh Marlowe, as songwriter Bob Mason, accommodates their needs with pained annoyance. But their presence in this New England town reveals intriguing strands of synchronicity between all the major characters. Dooley Wilson shines as Anthony James, helping the sisters out with their transportation needs, and Thomas Gomez as Luigi Rossi, comes across as a racketeer with a fugitive heart of gold, if you can believe that.
There is a compelling calculus of encounter that renders all the characters in a kind of Sacred Geometry of Dignity as the final scene resolves the story. You cannot help but feel that you have before you graphic evidence that man is basically good as the sisters achieve their ultimate goal in Bethlehem. Director Henry Koster puts all his actors to their marks with nary a misstep in musical counterpoint to Cyril J. Mockridge's rousing and inspiring score. While Bob Mason joins his little community with a face uplifted in prayer, wondering about the relationship between his latest popular song and a ancient Gregorian chant.