Barbara Stanwyck and Frank Capra did four films together in the early Thirties for Columbia and as this was Capra's early work it's of varying quality. The Miracle Woman has Barbara Stanwyck as an Aimee Semple McPherson type evangelist bilking the public for all it's worth under the tutelage of Sam Hardy.
Barbara's got good reason to be cynical, her father who was a devout minister died poor and uncared for by his Pharisee like congregation. With Hardy's encouragement she starts to see religion as a way to make some real dough. Doesn't that sound familiar for today.
She's going along in her cynical way until she meets David Manners, former veteran of the Great War who left his eyesight behind in it. Manners is the main weakness in The Miracle Woman, he's obviously a man of some culture and learning and I could not accept that this would be the kind of woman he would fall for.
The similarities between The Miracle Woman and Elmer Gantry are too obvious to ignore. Richard Brooks's classic is so much better done covering the same ground.
As for Stanwyck she gives a great performance in a film that never quite gets its message across.
Barbara's got good reason to be cynical, her father who was a devout minister died poor and uncared for by his Pharisee like congregation. With Hardy's encouragement she starts to see religion as a way to make some real dough. Doesn't that sound familiar for today.
She's going along in her cynical way until she meets David Manners, former veteran of the Great War who left his eyesight behind in it. Manners is the main weakness in The Miracle Woman, he's obviously a man of some culture and learning and I could not accept that this would be the kind of woman he would fall for.
The similarities between The Miracle Woman and Elmer Gantry are too obvious to ignore. Richard Brooks's classic is so much better done covering the same ground.
As for Stanwyck she gives a great performance in a film that never quite gets its message across.