THE TROUBLE WITH ANGELS 1966 lecinemadreams.blogspot.com /2014/10/the-trouble-with-angels-1966.html
I grew up in the '60s, the era of the “fun nun.” And while it’s true I attended Catholic schools almost exclusively during my youth, the real-life nuns I encountered on a daily basis bore more a resemblance to Jessica Lange’s steely Sister Jude in American Horror Story:Asylum than all those spunky, irrepressible, exhaustingly adorable nuns that littered the pop-cultural landscape in the wake of the '60s reconfiguration of the Catholic Church and Vatican II. Sister Luc-Gabrielle (The Singing Nun) and her ecumenical earworm of a pop-ditty Dominique, topped the charts and actually outsold The Beatles in 1963. In 1965, Julie Andrews and those Nazi-thwarting nuns of The Sound of Music broke boxoffice records nationwide. Sister Luc’s life story was Hollywoodized in 1966’s The Singing Nun, which was little more than perky Debbie Reynolds playing perky Debbie Reynolds in a wimple. Moving on to groovier, more socially-relevant pastures, Mary Tyler Moore played a toothsome, inner-city nun romanced by Elvis Presley (of all people) in his last film Change of Habit (1969). But perhaps the ultimate nadir and apogee of the entire '60s "nuns can be fun!" mania has to be the sitcom that launched a thousand Johnny Carson monologues: Sally Field as The Flying Nun (1967-1970): a credit which took the actress an entire career, three Emmys, and two Oscars to live down. When I was very small, nuns onscreen seemed like near-mythic figures of virtue, wisdom, and heroism on par with cowboys in white hats and combat soldiers at the front. The embodiment of Christian values in human form, they were untouchable (and, all-importantly, untouched), and representative of all the noble (aka, maternal) female virtues. But as I grew older, the long-suffering, queenly brand of nuns portrayed in movies like The Bells of Saint Mary’s (1945), Come to the Stable (1949), and The Nun’s Story (1959) struck me as just another variation of the self-sacrificing “grand lady” stereotype. Come the 1960s, when overt displays of religious piety began to be viewed as corny and old-fashioned by the moviegoing populace, nuns became overnight comic foils. Much in the way that viewers today never cease to find amusement in little old ladies engaging in comically inappropriate behavior like smoking joints, swearing, expressing sexual rapaciousness, or rapping (kill me now); nuns became the go-to images of charmingly comic inappropriateness. Anti-establishment humor, so popular at the time, relied on clearly defined standards of decency to offend, so in the mid-'60s it was nuns—those walking anachronisms of starchy morality—who played Margaret 1/14
Dumont to a world of counterculture Grouchos.
To avoid the appearance of mocking Catholicism, these films took the stance that their lghthearted ribbing actually contributed to “humanizing” nuns—not a bad idea, as nuns can be pretty terrifying. To mute the impression that Catholicism itself was being mocked from outsiders, these films tended to place the antagonist “in-house.” Meaning, the standard set-up was always very similar to that of your basic opposites-attract buddy film: a high-spirited, independent-minded novice (how does one solve a problem like Maria?) butts heads with a staunch defender of the old Catholic order. Old order Catholicism in these instances represented by the imposing figure of a Mother Superior: your typical imperious disciplinarian, wet-blanket authority-figure, and parental surrogate. Thanks to saturation, it didn't take long for the whole wacky nuns sub-genre to fall into a series of overworked, sitcomy tropes (nuns on scooters, nuns in brawls, nuns in discothèques), but in 1966, director Ida Lupino made what is perhaps the best film to come out of the whole “fun nuns” genre: the delightful The Trouble with Angels. One of the funniest and most egregiously overlooked comedies of the 1960s. Set in fictional St. Francis Academy, a conservative Catholic boarding school for girls in Philadelphia, The Trouble with Angels chronicles (in seriocomic vignettes) the misadventures of rebellious, head-strong Mary Clancy (Mills) and her bumbling partner-in-crime Rachel Devery (Harding), as their mischievous antics provoke the mounting consternation and ire of the school’s formidable Mother Superior (Russell). WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS FILM As I’ve expressed in previous posts, socalled “family films” held very little interest for me when I was a kid. It's not that I thought they were beneath me (I did), it's just that I found most of the 1966 options in inoffensive family entertainment (when I was all of 9years-old) to be pretty offensive. On the one hand, there was the “wholesome smut” genre, typified by Bob Hope’s Boy Did I Get The Wrong Number, and Jerry Lewis in Way…Way Out; and on the other, live-action Disney films, which, when not engaged in music or magic, were so plastic and artificial (The Monkey’s Uncle, That Darn Cat!) they were like images beamed from another Rosalind Russell as Mother Superior (Madeline Rouche) planet. Given that my older sister attended an all-girls’ Catholic school and was a huge Rosalind Russell fan, there was never any question about whether or not I was going to see The Trouble with Angels when it came out, merely when. (My sister turned me into a Russell Rooter by always insisting I watch Gypsy and Auntie Mame when they aired on TV, and by frequently pointing out how much Tony Curtis resembled her in Some Like It Hot. ) Besides, like many '60s-era little boys and girls, I harbored a mad (secret) crush on Hayley Mills. 2/14
When it came to finally seeing The Trouble with Angels, I’ll admit my expectations weren't very high. But from the minute I saw the pre-credits sequence which features an animated Haley Mills (complete with wings and halo) mischievously blowing out the torch of the Columbia Pictures lady, The Trouble with Angels had me in its pocket. Part insubordinate teen comedy, part sensitive coming-of-age film; part female buddy picture, part generation-gap farce (crossed with a little Sunday School theology); The Trouble with Angels is something of a family movie miracle. Certainly divine intervention is at least one explanation for the phenomenon of a film that doesn't exactly tread new comedy ground, nevertheless feeling so refreshingly original. Of course, the most obvious miracle worker is trailblazing actress/writer/director Ida Lupino, here directing her first film since 1953s The Bigamist. She handles both the comedy and drama with real aplomb, and gets engaging performances out of her talented cast of seasoned performers and newcomers (June Harding, who gets an “introducing" credit, is especially good). Lupino's deft touch is in evidence in the seamless manner in which the episodic sequences are tied together with clever connecting devices (the departure and triumphant return of the school band is a wonderful bit of visual shorthand), and in the largely silent scenes conveying the maturation of the Mary Clancy character. Best of all, Lupino manages all of this without resorting to cloying sentimentality, meanspiritedness, vulgarity, or the kind of overthe-top slapstick that bogged down the 1968 sequel, Where Angels Go…Trouble Follows.
Hayley Mills as Mary Clancy
PERFORMANCES The Trouble with Angels' original title (changed sometime during production) was the far less whimsical-sounding, Mother Superior. Well, the name may have been changed, but there's no denying that the film’s comedic, dramatic, and emotional focus remains with the character embodied by the actress who is the film's chief asset and most valuable player: Rosalind Russell. Whether getting laughs for her pricelessly droll delivery of simple lines like "Where's the fire?" or adding unexpected layers of emotional poignancy to scenes providing us brief glimpses of the woman behind the nun's habit; Rosalind Russell gives an June Harding as Rachel Devery extraordinarily layered, subdued performance. No Sylvia Fowler (The Women), Auntie Mame, or Mama Rose flamboyance here. Russell downplays beautiful and conveys volumes with those expressive eyes and peerless vocal inflections. 3/14
The Trouble with Angels is well-cast and well-acted throughout. Marge Redmond as Sister Ligouri, the mathematics teacher who sounds like a race track bookie, is very good in a role similar to that which she played for three years on The Flying Nun. Former Disney star Hayley Mills (19-years-old) and co-star June Harding (25) display a winning and relaxed rapport and make for a likable contrasting duo of troublemakers. Both are real charmers from the word go, and every moment they share onscreen is a delight. Mills, soon to graduate on to more aggressively adult roles (with nudity, yet!) is just excellent. Her performance gets better with each viewing. Before movies became a total boys' club in the '70s, for a brief time in the '60s there seemed to be a small surge in movies which placed the friendship between teenage girls at their center: The World of Henry Orient (1964) and I Saw What You Did (1965) are two of my favorites.
THE STUFF OF FANTASY One of the more impressive things about The Trouble with Angels it how beautifully (and effortlessly) it balances scenes of broad comedy and gentle humor while still allowing for sequences that are surprisingly touching in their humanity and compassion. Here are a few of my favorite scenes...no matter how many times I see them, the comedic ones make me laugh, the dramatic ones get the ol' waterworks going:
Tolerance Tested Reverend Mother falls victim to the old bubble-bath-in-the-sugar-bowl trick
THE STUFF OF DREAMS The Trouble with Angels was a boxoffice success when released and is well-liked and remembered with great affection by many; yet it remains one of those movies which seem to have somehow fallen through the Fleur de Lis & Kim Novak meet The Dragon cracks over the years. It’s not exactly forgotten (while available on DVD, the only time you can see it in widescreen is when it screens on TCM) but it rarely seems to come up in movie circles. Part of this is due to the film being a somewhat innocuous, at times glaringly oldfashioned comedy (in 1966, where there really teens who idolized Burt Lancaster and Jack Lemmon?) with no agenda beyond the modest desire to entertain while passing along a few life lessons and a simple message about growing up.
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Marge Redmond as Sister Ligouri, Russell as Mother Superior, and Binnie Barnes as Sister Celestine
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Mary Clancy on the verge of a "Scathingly brilliant idea"
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Girl Power A true Hollywood rarity, The Trouble with Angels is a major motion picture directed by a woman (Lupino), written by a woman (screenplay by Blanche Hanalis from Janet Trahey's 1962 memoir, Life with Mother Superior), focusing on the lives of its almost exclusively female cast. In the screencap above is classic character actress Mary Wickes as Sister Clarissa. Wickes reprised her role for the 1968 sequel Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows, and, 26-years-later, dusted off her nun's habit again to appear in both Whoopi Goldberg Sister Act movies.
Madame Rose & Her Daughter, Gypsy Rosalind Russell famously portrayed the mother of stripper/author/talk-show-hostess Gypsy Rose Lee in the eponymous 1962 musical. The Trouble with Angels brings mother and daughter together again (for the first time) as Miss Gypsy herself portrays Mrs. Mabel Dowling Phipps, interpretive dance instructor
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After appearing to the students to be coolly unmoved by the loss of a friend, in private, Mother Superior gives vent to her full anguish. Russell's performance in this scene alone single-highhandedly raises The Trouble with Angels far above the usual family film fare
June Harding never made another motion picture after The Trouble with Angels , and at age 25 it's not likely she could have ridden that teen train for much longer. But I always thought she would have made a wonderful Emmy Lou in a film adaptation of the Bobby Sox comic strip by Marty Links
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Jim Hutton (makes an unbilled cameo as Mr. Petrie ( "Sort of like Jack Lemmon, only younger." ), the headmaster of the progressive New Trends High School
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COMEDY: Where There's Smoke, There's Fire
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DRAMA: "I Found Something Better"
COMEDY: Binders Sale
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DRAMA: The Christmas Visitors (dam-bursting waterworks scene)
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And while the above may serve as a fairly apt description of the movie on its most superficial level, I think it's a mistake to dismiss a film merely because its ambitions—which The Trouble with Angels surpasses with ease—are modest, and chooses a light comedy touch over the bellylaugh sledgehammer. (Although I've never seen it, internet sources recommend the similar 1954 British comedy, The Belles of St. Trinian's for fans with broader tastes.) For me, The Trouble with Angels remains one of my favorite "comfort food" movies; a thoroughly enchanting, fumy, sweet-natured movie capable of stirring up warm feelings of nostalgia. In this instance, the very distant memory I have of when I was so young that movies like this made me associate organized religion with kindness, compassion, and empathy. So sad that religion is so often used today as the banner behind which so many seek to cloak their fear, ignorance, and hatred. Maybe it wouldn't hurt if some of those "fun nuns" made a comeback.
BONUS MATERIALS Rosalind Russell reprised her role as Mother Superior in the 1968 sequel, Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows , but Hayley Mills was conspicuously absent. Some say it is because Mills was back in Britain and overbooked with film projects. Others attribute it to the rumor that Russell and Mills didn't get along. A rumor supported by Rosalind's 13/14
Russell's 1977 autobiography, Life's a Banquet, in which Russell writes: "Haley Mills was a demon. She used to stick out her tongue whenever I passed (she couldn't stand me) and she was bursting at the seams with repressed sexuality." Mills, for her part, has denied there was ever any bad blood between them. Actress June Harding (Rachel Devery) has a website where she has posted many of the letters she wrote during the film's production: June Harding Official Website Listen to the theme song to Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows by Boyce & Hart HERE In many ways The Trouble With Angels marks Hayley Mills' last "girlish" film role. From 1967 on she appeared in roles which seemed designed specifically to promote a mature image and divest her of her Disney persona. In 1974, Hayley Mills dropped her Disney princess image for good (as well as her knickers) in the bizarre but oh-so engrossing British thriller, Deadly Strangers co-starring Simon Ward and Sterling Hayden. A real departure and available on YouTube HERE
Copyright Š Ken Anderson
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