This isn't bad, a kind of re-telling of the story of Amee Semple McPherson and her Four Square Gospel, a popular religious movement during the 20s. She'd be a television celebrity today. McPherson, I think, disappeared mysteriously and some time later showed up without any adequate explanation for her absence. It was widely thought that she'd been shacked up with a married boyfriend someplace, maybe on the Monterey Peninsula. Charges were brought. The scandal that followed was scandalous.
Barbara Stanwyck plays a similar character in this early 30s production. Her religious beliefs are genuine and intense, and she empties a church while defending her father's integrity, shouting that the congregation is hypocritical. A perfectly pragmatic bad guy, Hardy, latches onto Stanwyck's emotional impact and talks her into organizing a kind of religious traveling circus, complete with shills in the audience and phony faith cures. His argument is simplicity itself, a spun-out version of Kant's hypothetical imperative. Sure, we're all hypocrites. So why not be a hypocrite that makes money out of that hypocrisy? Still bitter, she agrees, and the show is a great success. Enter David Manners, a blind ex aviator from World War I. (Kids: that was 1917-1918.) Distraught and hopeless, he's about to jump out of a window when he hears one of her radio broadcasts and undergoes some kind of Road-to-Damascus number.
They meet. They fall in love. Everything looks rosy except that Stanwyck is now beginning to feel some guilt over her phoniness. She wants out of it but Hardy has arranged things in such a way that she's trapped in her role as fake preacher. There's humiliation, disgrace. But the director, honing his skills for such later successes as "It's A Wonderful Life" and "Mister Smith Goes to Washington", let's everybody off easy.
I've never found Barbara Stanwyck as compelling an actress as some others have but she puts a lot into this role. She looks vulnerable. She would hit a neat peak in her career with "Double Indemnity", partly because of that tight sweater, that golden anklet, and that outlandish blond wig. She should have probably retired earlier than she did because the image she left with too many people is that of the hard-faced dominatrix of some revoltingly rich family of ranchers.
But the script isn't bad. The blind pilot is something of a bore, but Sam Hardy as the corrupt manager has an admirably complex role and does well by it. Too bad the movie has lost so much of its historical resonance. Who remembers Aimee Semple McPherson today? Everyone did in 1931.
Barbara Stanwyck plays a similar character in this early 30s production. Her religious beliefs are genuine and intense, and she empties a church while defending her father's integrity, shouting that the congregation is hypocritical. A perfectly pragmatic bad guy, Hardy, latches onto Stanwyck's emotional impact and talks her into organizing a kind of religious traveling circus, complete with shills in the audience and phony faith cures. His argument is simplicity itself, a spun-out version of Kant's hypothetical imperative. Sure, we're all hypocrites. So why not be a hypocrite that makes money out of that hypocrisy? Still bitter, she agrees, and the show is a great success. Enter David Manners, a blind ex aviator from World War I. (Kids: that was 1917-1918.) Distraught and hopeless, he's about to jump out of a window when he hears one of her radio broadcasts and undergoes some kind of Road-to-Damascus number.
They meet. They fall in love. Everything looks rosy except that Stanwyck is now beginning to feel some guilt over her phoniness. She wants out of it but Hardy has arranged things in such a way that she's trapped in her role as fake preacher. There's humiliation, disgrace. But the director, honing his skills for such later successes as "It's A Wonderful Life" and "Mister Smith Goes to Washington", let's everybody off easy.
I've never found Barbara Stanwyck as compelling an actress as some others have but she puts a lot into this role. She looks vulnerable. She would hit a neat peak in her career with "Double Indemnity", partly because of that tight sweater, that golden anklet, and that outlandish blond wig. She should have probably retired earlier than she did because the image she left with too many people is that of the hard-faced dominatrix of some revoltingly rich family of ranchers.
But the script isn't bad. The blind pilot is something of a bore, but Sam Hardy as the corrupt manager has an admirably complex role and does well by it. Too bad the movie has lost so much of its historical resonance. Who remembers Aimee Semple McPherson today? Everyone did in 1931.