:Going My Way:
Remember how I said in my 1930s wrap-up that I wanted movies that showed me how to be a better person? Well, this movie delivers on that but boy was it boring!
This is the tale of a church deeply in debt with an elderly priest at the helm. The bishop sends in an easy-going younger priest named O’Malley (Bing Crosby) to right the ship.
I loved How Green Was My Valley and its pure-of-spirit message but this one, with the gentle, nobel, musical Father O’Malley was so clean it was hard to find a foothold. No conflicts that challenge your conscience or cause you to think about anything in depth. And even the easygoing parts of it were such gimmicks that I couldn’t enjoy them.
Betsie thought the plot and sub-plots were solid but that the movie lost its timing part way through and limped to the finish. Also, it was overly and unnecessarily sentimental.
After discussion we agreed that O’Malley’s character was too flawless. There was nothing for him to learn, not even from the older priest, Fitzgibbons, who he was sent in to work with. And his work creating the boys choir was just too easy – a set-up. He could have worked for their trust a bit more, or had some hurdles. But all of his accomplishments were handed to him on a silver platter.
On the plus side, I’m not a big musicals fan but music was seemlessly integrated and that was nice.
:Double Indemnity:
I figured it wouldn’t be hard to recruit someone to watch this classic film noire with me that filmsite.org supports for an award this year. I was laboring under the misconception that Hitchcock directed it but it was actually Billy Wilder, who I’m not familiar with.
Hubby and I had already seen it together a few years ago so I called on Betsie and after a meal of grilled steak sandwiches with herbed goat cheese on ciabatta rolls and warm lava cake fresh from the oven I broke the news that I’d realized it wasn’t a Hitchcock movie and we re-evaluated our movie options and decided to watch Going My Way instead and I was left on my own for Double Indemnity which I watched the day after our dinner.
This classic stars Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray. It was as dark as a stormy night and MacMurray must have called Stanwyck “Baby” a hundred times but for all that the tension was real. As a matter of principle I am patently unwilling to use the word “gritty” in connection with it.
Still, I preferred it over Going My Way so for 1944 I am going to vote the filmsite.org way.
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