Schwester Maria Bonaventura

Claudette Colbert is far too pretty and made-up to play a nun. She's one of my favorites, but she just can't pull it off. So, in Thunder on the Hill, with her Harlequin eyebrows, her glossy lips, and her passionate tearful expressions, she doesn't pull off being a nun. Nuns are a different kind of people, and they have a constant hold over their emotions. Remember the difference between Julie Andrews and Peggy Wood in The Sound of Music? Claudette is much more Julie than Peggy.

Granted, early in the film, she shares with Mother Superior, played by Gladys Cooper, that she harbors guilt and upsetness over her sister's suicide, but that doesn't mean she should act like a normal, emotional person for the rest of the film. If Claudette were a novice, like Julie Andrews, or a nurse volunteering at the church during the storm, she would have done a wonderful job, as she usually does.

Trapped by an unexpected flood, a woman condemned to hang, Ann Blyth, stays in a church. One of the nuns believes she's innocent and tries to help prove her case before it's too late. If you think this sounds interesting, you can rent it. However, almost everyone in the film overacts, leading me to believe director Douglas Sirk intended them to. Ann has a very small part, even though the plot revolves around her, and someone really should have rewritten the movie to make Claudette a nurse.