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Kierkegaard in Hollywood is the point of departure, a California hamlet with a hardworking Jesuit order that could use "a little inspiration." The interiors of the mission have a sobriety concurrent with Diary of a Country Priest, on the other hand William Demarest as the visiting monsignor allows himself a dash of Going My Way. "Tell me, how goes everything with the shock troops of Heaven?" The mystery at the center is a marvel of staging: The padres settle in for home movies, on a screen flicker Indian holy men and elephants while in the background the bedridden priest (H.B. Warner) staggers down a flight of stairs, amid the ensuing commotion there's an exchange of glances between the former lawyer in cassock (Charles Boyer) and the agnostic physician (Lyle Bettger). Pilgrimages, the heiress in the wheelchair (Barbara Rush), "the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace." A hoax, an experiment, "a crazy kind of fun," the anguished Jesuit prays for the doctor and the chapel altar gathers subtle noir shadows. The seminary fascinates Douglas Sirk more as a societal institution than a religious one, yet his engagement with both faith (the young priest finding transcendental expression through music) and doubt (sacred figurines hawked to the crowds outside the gates) is equally scrupulous. The contemplative approach contrasts with the extravagance of its companion piece, Thunder on the Hill, still the head cleric (Leo G. Carroll) keels over once doubt invades his soul. How to film a miracle, asks Sirk as Hitchcock or Dreyer would. "Say it and mean it" is the monsignor's advice, thus the dénouement's blur of the inspiring and the baleful (cf. Hausner's Lourdes). With Walter Hampden, Wesley Addy, Taylor Holmes, George Zucco, John McGuire, Jacqueline DeWit, Dorothy Adams and Queenie Smith. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |