Roberto Rossellini Month is finally here! (You know you've been waiting)

I have to admit something before we get started. For a long time, all I knew about Roberto Rossellini was that he had an affair with Ingrid Bergman. 

When you read about old-time Hollywood, this was a big deal. Not that Hollywood stars weren’t having affairs left and right back in the day, but the studios' PR people were usually pretty good about covering things up. When the actress who played Sister Mary in The Bells of St. Mary's was found to be with child while married to someone who wasn't the baby's father, it got some notice. 

For a while, groups in the Roman Catholic Church tried to organize boycotts of Bergman's work, and she needed to go to Europe to make films. The scandal was all the more serious because Rossellini was also married to someone else when he fathered Bergman’s child. Rossellini divorced his wife to marry Bergman (and Bergman divorced her husband to marry Rossellini) as you might have guessed if you’ve ever seen a film with Isabella Rossellini. Rossellini did eventually cheat on Bergman, the marriage was annulled, and both married others.

Until recently I hadn’t watched any of Rossellini’s films. I knew he was the father of “Neo-Realism” and that sounded awfully dull. When I was given a gift subscription to the Criterion Channel for Fathers' Day, I finally got around to watching my first Rossellini film, Rome, Open City. 

It was really good. 

More importantly (for this blog, anyway) a priest played a big role in the film. I started to research more about Rossellini and found he made a lot of films that prominently feature the Catholic faith. Though he wasn’t religious himself, he was very interested in Christian values and considered it a loss that Catholic ethics were neglected in an increasingly materialistic world.

I had three months of the Criterion Channel, so I did a little research. Were there enough Rossellini films featuring churches or clergy? It turns out there were more than enough. I couldn't cover all the films I wanted to, so I hope I can fit them in with the themes of upcoming months. 

So if you suffer, as I did, from Rossellini ignorance, this is a good month for you to turn that around, starting this Friday with Rome, Open City.

Mystery Month: Murder on the Orient Express

Murder on the Orient Express (1974, 2017)
I hoped there would be a railway chaplain. Before I starting writing this post, I found out there is indeed a railway ministry that puts chaplains on trains, and they’ve been around for 100 years, covering the 1930’s setting of this film. Sadly, there is no chaplain in either version of Murder on the Orient Express that I watched, but both have a missionary -- so I have something to write about for Mystery Month at Movie Churches.

If you don’t know the story of this Agatha Christie classic, you might want to stop reading right here, because the solution to the mystery is rather ingenious, and some of things I write may give away part of that solution. So you might want to stop reading this and pick up one of the many filmed versions to watch (or, you know, read the book). We’re reviewing the more famous 1974 & 2017 versions, but there are others (including a 2015 Japanese telling of the tale).

If you’re still with me, let’s start with director Sidney Lumet’s 1974 telling of the story. The film begins with flashbacks from the 1930 kidnapping and murder of the “Armstrong Baby,” Daisy, the child of a famous aviator. (In her novel, published in 1934, Christie was quite transparently retelling the story of the kidnapping and murder of Charles Lindbergh's son.) The film then moves to “the present,” several years later. A number of passengers are seen preparing to board the Orient Express, a luxury passenger train running from Istanbul to Paris. They seem to have very diverse backgrounds, but it becomes clear that all have a connection to that world-famous crime from 1930, and that the kidnapper is one of the passengers. Hercule Poirot (Albert Finney), who modestly describes himself as perhaps the world’s greatest detective, is also on the train.*

At the train station we see a woman searching desperately for her St. Christopher medal. It’s Greta Ohlsson (Ingrid Bergman in an Oscar winning performance), a Swedish missionary. (I wondered about the accuracy of this, thinking only Catholics would have St. Christopher medals. But never wrong Wikipedia says that Lutherans also honor St. Christopher, so go figure.)

Since the film is, after all, a mystery, it’s only a matter of time before someone is murdered. The kidnapper, Ratchet (Richard Widmark), is killed. When Greta hears the news, she says, “God’s laws have been trounced, thou shalt not kill.” A railway executive, a friend of Poirot’s, hires him to solve the murder. He suspects everyone that has a connection to the the Armstrong family.

Does that include Greta? She claims to work in Africa as missionary “teaching little brown babies more backward than myself.” She claims to be going to Europe on a fundraising tour.

Poirot uses his “little gray cells” to deduce that Greta was the Armstrongs’ governess, who was bound and gagged during the kidnapping. On the train, she pretends to have limited English language ability. It becomes obvious that she wasn’t a missionary before working for the Armstrongs, before the kidnapping.

Now here’s where the real plot spoiling comes to play. Greta played a part in Ratchett’s murder. She commited the crime “for their Daisy and for mine; God forgive me.”

Kenneth Branagh went in a very different direction casting the nursemaid/missionary character for his 2017 version of Murder on the Orient Express. Penelope Cruz plays Pilar Estravados. This is one of many changes Branagh made with his film, though the basic story is intact.

The film opens with a very different little mystery, Poirot solving a case in the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. An official tells Poirot he has narrowed the suspects to a Rabbi, a Priest, and an Imam. Poirot, of course, solves the crime, and it is not the work of one of the holy men.

We first encounter Pilar, the missionary, on the train. She is offered wine and replies, “I do not drink.”
When asked if it doesn't agree with her, she replies, “Sin does not agree with me. Vice is where the devil finds his darlings.”

Again, there is the murder of the kidnapper, Ratchett (Johnny Depp). When Pilar is told of the death she says, “God rest his soul.” Again, Poirot must investigate her along with all the other suspects.

Hercule Poirot: You are a missionary but you trained as a nurse.

Pilar: I owed it to God.

HP: You owed Him a debt?

P: There were indulgent times in my life when I took more than I gave.

Later, from HP: Your hands are those of a boxer.

P: I train to fight. I work in dangerous places.

HP: Don’t you trust God?

P: He might be busy

HP: He is always busy.

Again, Poirot discovers the true identity of the missionary. He also discovers the true reason for her aversion to alcohol. She’d had one too many drinks the night of the kidnapping, and she blames herself for not being alert enough to put a stop to it.

And again Poirot discovers the missionary played a part in the murder. He talks to her about what he should do with what he has learned.

Pilar: You said your role was to find justice.

Hercule Poirot: What is justice here?

P: Sometimes the law of man is not enough

HP: Where does conscience lie?

P: Buried with Daisy.

HP: May you find your peace with this. May we all.

As you can see by this interchange, the 2017 version wrestles a little more with moral and theological issues than the former, which we’re in support of here at Movie Churches. Our Steeple rating for both missionaries, Greta and Pilar, is the same: one steeple, our lowest rating. Murder does that to Steeple ratings. Part of the justice doled out for the crime.


*I would be remiss if I didn’t tell you that a church is mentioned in this portion of the film. While waiting to board the train in Istanbul, a British soldier tells Poirot, “The Church of Santa Sophia is magnificent!”

“You’ve seen it?” Poirot asks.

The soldier says, “No.”

Christmas Movies Month: The Bells of St. Mary's

The Bells of St. Mary’s (1945)

I’ll happily argue that Gremlins, L. A. Confidential, Lethal Weapon, and The Apartment are more Christmassy films than The Bells of St. Mary’s. The former films quite explicitly take place at Christmas time, while The Bells of St. Mary’s happens to have a scene where a Chrsitmas play is rehearsed. That scene is in the middle of the film, a story that takes place over an entire school year. Nevertheless, the film is in the rotation of Christmas films, and it has a place on top Christmas film lists. A version of the film’s theme (the St. Mary’s school song) can be found on Christmas albums. When George Bailey runs through the streets of Bedford Falls on Christmas Eve in It’s a Wonderful Life, we can see that The Bells of St. Mary’s is playing at the local movie theater, because the title’s up on the marquee.

PR w/o clerical collar or habit

So I figure all this is good enough to give the film a place in Movie Churches’ Christmas films, and it certainly has a church and clergy -- and a little bit of Christmas.

The film is a sequel to Bing Crosby’s hit, Going My Way, which won an Oscar for Best Picture. In The Bells of St. Mary’s, Bing again plays Father O’Malley, the good natured priest, this time going to serve in a parochial school run by nuns led by Sister Superior, Mary Benedict (Ingrid Bergman). The film follows a school year, and in the midst of that school year, there is a rehearsal for a Christmas play.

There is a shot of St. Mary’s covered in snow and we see Father O’Malley playing “Come All Ye Faithful” on the piano as he sings in Latin, surrounded by a group of students. Sister Mary Benedict comes in and complains that the noise is interrupting the kindergarten’s rehearsal for the Christmas program.

Bing offers to play for the Christmas program, saying, “You can’t have a Christmas play without ‘O Holy Night’ or ‘Adeste Fideles’.” But Sister Mary Benedict tells him the kids have the program covered.

She takes him to see what Bobby and other kindergarteners are doing. The very small Mary and Joseph go from place to place asking for lodging. Each time, they’re asked, “Do you have any money?”

They say, “No” and are sent away until someone finally offers the stable.

Sister Benedict says, “Bobby made the play up. It’s a little not good.”

Finally, the “baby” (a two year old) is “born,” and the children sing “Happy Birthday to You.”

Father O’Malley says, “Their simplicity is beautiful; I wouldn’t change a word of it.”

Sister Benedict says, “But they will. They do it different every time.”

I should note that the Christmas story presented in church Christmas plays and Christmas cards is off. We always see Mary and Joseph traveling to Bethlehem alone, but people in that day usually travelled in groups. All of Joseph’s family were required to report to Bethlehem for the census, so they probably traveled with family, not alone. The little kids in the movie take things a litttle further from the true story when the innkeepers reject Mary and Joseph because they have no money -- that’s not in Scripture. (Perhaps it’s a juvenile attack on capitalism.)  But their play is darn cute.

But we need to remember that  the purpose of Movie Churches is to examine ministries in films, so how they do Father O’Malley and Sister Benedict do? Let’s just say some of the practices at the school are...problematic.

One of the odd things about their work with the kids shows ups when we see Father O’Malley taking a special interest in one of the girls in the school, and Sister Benedict is a special supporter of one of the boys.

When two school boys fight, Father O’Malley expresses his admiration for the boy who beats up a kid named Tommy, saying, “That boy knows how to handle himself.” Tommy had been trying to practice the teachings of Jesus (turning the other cheek) that he’s learned from Sister Benedict. When she sees that her instruction led to Tommy beaten up, she decides to teach him to fight. She gets a book by boxer Gene Tunney and schools Tommy in the pugilistic arts -- because obviously that guy Jesus didn’t know what he was talking about in the Sermon on the Mount.

Father O’Malley takes an interest in a thirteen-year old girl named Patsy. Patsy’s parents have been separated since the girl was two (but not divorced, because that wouldn’t be the Catholic thing to do). When O’Malley is asked about the girl’s situation, he tries to fudge over the facts for fear the girl won’t be admitted. But she is. She comes to O’Malley for help with her school work, which he provides by teaching her songs.

When Patsy fails the test for eighth grade graduation (intentionally, we later learn), Father O’Malley encourages Sister Benedict to overlook the test scores. The Sister insists the school must maintain standards, but Father O’Malley seems to believe kids should be graduated without regard to their academic performance. He seems to think this is the compassionate thing to do, but I’m not convinced it’s a good idea to move kids through the system whether they’ve learned or not.

The main plot of the film, as with many movies about churches made in this period, is about finances and real estate. St. Mary’s is supposedly in ill repair and could be condemned at any time, though the viewer is shown no evidence of this. Sister Benedict is covetous of the new office building next door to the school built by Horace P. Bogardus (Henry Travers). Obviously, he is greedy for wanting to keep the building he made for his business instead of giving it to the Church for the school’s use.

Sister Benedict makes it her prayer project that Horace will give the building to them. She doesn’t talk about praying for Horace’s salvation or for him to be blessed, but that he’d give her the building.

When Father O’Malley talks with Horace’s doctor, he mentions the sister’s prayers for the building. The doctor says, “Does she really believe Bogardus will give her the building? I haven’t encountered such a thing since I was a little boy and wished for something for Christmas.”

O’Malley does some finangling, asking the doctor to urge his patient to give away the building because it will be “good for his heart.”

Horace, does, of course, give his building to St. Mary’s because it’s “for the kids.” (There is never any discussion in these films about how businesses provide work for parents who need jobs to care for their children.)

The clergy in the film don’t talk about the Bible much, though Father O’Malley does at one time quote “The epistle of St. Peter, ‘Be sober and watchful’... or was it St. Paul?”

At the end of the film, there is a health crisis causing Father O’Malley to struggle to decide if honesty is the best policy.  Sister Benedict must deal with her own issue of bitterness, and their problems are resolved in a godly manner.

So in the Spirit of Christmas (even though there isn’t much Christmas in the film), I give the pastor and the nuns of The Bells of St. Mary’s Three Steeples.