Like Make Way For Tomorrow– another well-acted
tearjerker
The biggest movie of
1944– #1 box office and won a whopping seven Oscars (including all the big
ones—picture, director, actor, supporting actor, screenplay, song)
Barry Fitzgerald
hilarious as the stodgy old priest, and Bing Crosby’s easy charm and affability
is a smooth as it gets. The rest of the ensemble is good as well. Gene Lockhart
and Porter Hall- so reliable- they’d show up again together as villains of
sorts in Miracle on 34th
Street. Porter Hall as an angry atheist- haha. The kids in the choir here
are like a variation on the Dead End kids game in the 1930’s Warners films
Leo McCarey’s
direction is upspecial—he has a trademark (a bad one) of throwing in a casual
wipe edit once in a while for no reason
This is more trivia than evaluation here
but Fitzgerald was nominated for lead and supporting actor for the same
performance- wild
McCarey’s shrewdly works the songs
into the story naturally. Bing starts a boys choir to keep the gang out of
trouble, the young girl in trouble wants to be a singer, his old friend is in
the Carmen opera, he sings a lullaby to Fitzgerald (which works as a good scene
somehow- testament to McCarey and the actors)
In the movie the record company says
“nobody is buying schmaltz” — ironic a little with the nature of this very
sentimental film
Within the film there’s this little
short scene about Lockhart’s son going off to war that is great and the reunion
with Fitzgerald’s mother at the end before Bing walks off into the sunset like
an angel who has accomplished his mission won’t leave anyone with a dry eye
either
[…] Going My Way– McCarey […]