Hablan las campanas

During the late 1940s Clare Booth Luce, wife of Henry Luce of the Luce Publications, noted playwright, Republican Congresswoman had a celebrated conversion to Catholicism courtesy of Bishop Fulton J. Sheen. There's nothing like the zeal of the newly converted so this screenplay was written to show how God does move in mysterious ways for the believers.

What's hard to believe is that the same author of The Women actually wrote Come to the Stable. But it's true and Luce is a skilled writer and she fashioned a very easy to take tale of two nuns over from France trying to build a children's hospital in memory of the kids they couldn't save in World War II.

The two nuns are played by Loretta Young and Celeste Holm. There was no doubt that Young would be one of the three leads. Loretta Young, Irene Dunne and Rosalind Russell were three of the leading female Catholic lay people in the country at that time. I'm sure all were approached with this film.

Young and Holm were both recent Oscar winners, for The Farmer's Daughter and Gentlemen's Agreement and both were nominated for Best Actress here. Both lost the big sweepstakes to Olivia DeHavilland who was also a recent winner for To Each His Own. Strange are the ways of the Academy voters. Elsa Lanchester was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for her role as the religious artist who offers the nuns shelter and lodging during their quest. Lanchester is her usual charming, but off the wall self in her part.

In today's audience some may find all the happy coincidences a bit much. But then again that is precisely the point of the film, that God will help those who help themselves.

One other thing. Some very rough and irreligious people contribute to the sister's endeavor and I think the message there is that on occasion, man can rise above just looking out for himself and think of the human race at large.