Hollywood piety; the worst kind. Russell Janney's novel "The Miracle of the Bells" was a big bestseller but this screen version came out of RKO, a studio not famed for their blockbusters and the director was Irving Pichel who was hardly a name to conjure with. It might have launched Alida Valli as a major star had it been more successful. She plays a young actress cast as Joan of Arc, who dies of TB the day after the picture is completed. Fred MacMurray is the press agent who loved her and who brings her body back home for burial while a highly unlikely Frank Sinatra is cast as a poverty row priest.
The title really gives the game away; you see, Valli isn't just playing a fine actress but a deeply religious one as well and it's hardly a mere coincidence that her only film role was playing a saint while MacMurray's idea to have all the local church bells ring continuously for three days and nights is both a tribute and a marketing ploy and if there's anything good about the present picture it's MacMurray who rises above the cloying sentimentality, proving once again he was one of the most underrated actors in movies. Valli looks beautiful but is defeated by the material. The real miracle is that the book sold and the movie found some kind of audience.
The title really gives the game away; you see, Valli isn't just playing a fine actress but a deeply religious one as well and it's hardly a mere coincidence that her only film role was playing a saint while MacMurray's idea to have all the local church bells ring continuously for three days and nights is both a tribute and a marketing ploy and if there's anything good about the present picture it's MacMurray who rises above the cloying sentimentality, proving once again he was one of the most underrated actors in movies. Valli looks beautiful but is defeated by the material. The real miracle is that the book sold and the movie found some kind of audience.