Minister's daughter Barbara Stanwyck has had enough of the hypocrites of her father's congregation as she takes the pulpit to tell them off in one of the great cinematic splendors of its day. This is Barbara Stanwyck's second of five Frank Capra films, and she is absolutely superb in it. From that exposition of her father's clergy's immorality to her own by becoming a famous evangelist who is out for what she can take, it is very apparent that this is Capra's call for exposing the hypocrisy he believed the very real Aimee Semple McPherson was doing with her showy displays of religious dramatics and so-called paranormal cures. Stanwyck gets to rise up to call the Lord in, splendidly set on some very art-decco church platforms, filled with wild animals in cages and every lavishness she could think of to manipulate her congregation into giving so she could provide them more of a show.
Things begin to change for her when a handsome blind man (David Manners) comes to her for a cure, and she falls head over heels in love with him. This puts a damper on her partner's (Sam Hardy) schemes, and ultimately leads to tragic events that could cost many people their lives. Capra had risen from assistant film maker during the silent era to Columbia's biggest director, and this is his first true classic. Everything about it screams "spectacle", much like Joseph Von Sternberg's films did for Dietrich over at Paramount. Columbia got to "rise up" out of the list of poverty row studios, and with this film, Stanwyck quickly became one of Hollywood's "A" list stars.
There's comedy thrown in with the apply named "Gussie" (Thelma Hill), a chatty sort of "Cathy", Manners' Charlie McCarthy like dummy who is his constant companion (and possibly jealous of Stanwyck) and the warm hearted Beryl Mercer. But it's Stanwyck who comes off the winner here, aided from an iffy start in films by Capra's guidance, and assisted here with a brilliant script and some really stunning photography. It is obvious that this is one of the first films to show how far technology had come in the movies since the change of the decade, and even today, it reveals a lot about the human soul through its deep look into what makes Stanwyck's foolish character change and literally come back to life just as she had brought life back to the lonely Manners.
Things begin to change for her when a handsome blind man (David Manners) comes to her for a cure, and she falls head over heels in love with him. This puts a damper on her partner's (Sam Hardy) schemes, and ultimately leads to tragic events that could cost many people their lives. Capra had risen from assistant film maker during the silent era to Columbia's biggest director, and this is his first true classic. Everything about it screams "spectacle", much like Joseph Von Sternberg's films did for Dietrich over at Paramount. Columbia got to "rise up" out of the list of poverty row studios, and with this film, Stanwyck quickly became one of Hollywood's "A" list stars.
There's comedy thrown in with the apply named "Gussie" (Thelma Hill), a chatty sort of "Cathy", Manners' Charlie McCarthy like dummy who is his constant companion (and possibly jealous of Stanwyck) and the warm hearted Beryl Mercer. But it's Stanwyck who comes off the winner here, aided from an iffy start in films by Capra's guidance, and assisted here with a brilliant script and some really stunning photography. It is obvious that this is one of the first films to show how far technology had come in the movies since the change of the decade, and even today, it reveals a lot about the human soul through its deep look into what makes Stanwyck's foolish character change and literally come back to life just as she had brought life back to the lonely Manners.