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Wednesday, March 22nd | 6 Movies

It hasn’t always been easy for Hollywood to tackle the subject of religion on film. When filmmakers did take on this delicate subject matter, they had to do so with great attention to detail, crafting movies that would appeal to both religious and secular audiences. TCM’s 31 Days of Oscars celebration features a line-up of six movies about religion that each garnered Academy Award attention.

Spencer Tracy’s performance as the benevolent Father Flanagan in Boys Town (1938) is one of the most endearing of his long and fruitful career as an actor. A lifelong Catholic, Tracy took the role quite seriously and was ultimately humbled by the experience. Boys Town is inspired by the story of Father Edward J. Flanagan, a Catholic priest who started a community in Omaha, Nebraska where he could rehabilitate “homeless, abandoned boys, regardless of race, creed or color.” He operated on the philosophy that “there’s no such thing as a bad boy” and developed a vastly different model than traditional reform schools. The rights to Flanagan’s story was acquired by MGM in 1937. According to Tracy biographer James Curtis, MGM story editor Kate Corbaley had been in search for another priest character that Tracy could play given the success of his performance as Father Mullin in San Francisco (1936). Directed by Norman Taurog, Boys Town blends reality with fiction by telling the real life story of Father Flanagan while weaving in a fictional tale involving Mickey Rooney’s character struggling to adjust to life at Boys Town. The film includes a robust cast of talented child actors including Bobs Watson and Frankie Thomas. Boys Town, with its heart-warming story and themes of benevolence, patience and empathy, was a huge hit with audiences. It became the highest grossing film of 1938 and the success led to a sequel, Men of Boys Town (1941).

Come Oscar time, Boys Town was nominated for five Academy Awards including Best Director, Best Writing, Screenplay, Best Writing, Original Story and Best Picture. Spencer Tracy won the coveted Best Actor in a Leading Role Oscar. In his acceptance speech he said, “I can accept it only as it was meant to be for a great man—Father Flanagan, whose goodness and greatness must have been enough to shine even through me.” Two days after the award ceremony, the statuette arrived at the real Boys Town and was presented to Father Flanagan with the added inscription: “To Father Edward J. Flanagan, whose great human qualities, kindly simplicity and inspiring courage were strong enough to shine through my humble effort.”

The script for Warner Bros.’s family saga One Foot in Heaven (1941) was handled with kid gloves throughout its development and production. Directed by Irving Rapper, the film stars Fredric March as William Spence, a medical student who abandons a future career as a doctor to pursue ministry in the Methodist church. Martha Scott plays Hope, his long suffering yet devoted wife. One Foot in Heaven isn’t plot-driven. Instead, it’s a series of vignettes, of the adventures and misadventures of Spence and his family over the course of two decades as they move from parish to parish. The story was based on Hartzell Spence’s memoir which chronicled his life growing up with a Methodist pastor as a father. Spence was heavily involved in the script writing process and had initially retained approval of both the script and the final picture in his contract. In an interview with “The New York Times”, Spence said “the picture must be faithful, in my opinion, to my father’s memory and the church he served.” Several clerical Protestants expressed concerns early on in production and the studio sought out members of the Advisory Committee of Clergymen and Reverend Norman Vincent Peale for advice on the film’s depiction of church life.

One Foot in Heaven received one solitary Oscar nomination for Best Picture, making it the only nominee in that category to not have any acting or technical nominations. The fact that the film got that nomination speaks to its success with audiences. Warner Bros. launched an extensive publicity campaign to small towns encouraging local preachers and their congregations to check out their wholesome offering. The timing was also ideal. One Foot in Heaven was released during WWII and it offered nostalgia with a dose of spirituality to an audience looking for comfort during unsettling times.

Tackling one of the most important eras of Portugal’s religious and political history, The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima (1952) is based on events that took place from May 13th to October 13th, 1917, in which three children in Portugal claimed to have witnessed apparitions of the Virgin Mary. The film begins with the Portuguese Revolution of 1910 which saw the established monarchy overthrown and the criminalization of the Catholic church. The rural town of Fatima was an enclave that was still religious despite widespread government overreach. Directed by John Brahm, the film stars child actors Susan Whitney, Sherry Jackson and Sammy Ogg as the three children, Lucia dos Santos and her two cousins Jacinta Marto and Francisco Marto respectively.  Gilbert Roland plays Hugo da Silva, a fictional character that brings the otherwise serious drama some mischievousness and comedic relief. Hugo is purposefully agnostic in order for the character to appeal to secular audiences but also so he could have a moment of religious enlightenment later in the film. Shot in WarnerColor—the film was one of the first to use the process—and on location in Portugal, the production aimed to capture the beauty of the rural setting.

The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima received one Academy Award nomination for Best Score, the 21st such nomination for composer Max Steiner. In biographer Steven C. Smith’s book “Music by Max Steiner”, he writes “Steiner found some of his inspiration from Richard Strauss: Fatima’s main theme evokes the awe of “Also sprach zarathustra’s” famous opening in its octave-leaping majesty. From its stirring chorales for brass and organ, to its pastoral writing for the children, Fatima achieves spirituality without sanctimony. Never mind that Steiner was not religious: he could imagine the conviction of those who were.” Steiner would lose out to Dimitri Tiomkin for High Noon (1952).

While The Shoes of the Fisherman (1968) didn’t make a huge splash upon its international release, it is notable for its prescient depiction of an Eastern European Papal figure, essentially predicting the ordination of Pope John Paul II which took place 10 years after the film’s release. The Shoes of the Fisherman stars Anthony Quinn as Kiril Lakota, a Ukrainian priest newly released from a Soviet gulag labor camp. When Pope Prius XII (John Gielgud) suddenly passes away, Kiril quickly ascends the ranks to his ordination, despite much reservation. The film explores the intersection between the Catholic Church and international politics and is firmly rooted in the Cold War with much of the film concerning itself with the pervasive fear of a nuclear war. The Shoes of the Fisherman was based on the novel by Morris West; the first book in his Vatican Trilogy. MGM producer George Englund bought the rights to the book and the production took place over 3 years with various delays and script changes to make the subject matter more relevant to the changing times.

The Shoes of the Fisherman was nominated for two Academy Awards: Best Art Direction and Set Direction for George W. Davis and Edward C. Carfagno and Best Music, Original Score for Alex North. Davis and Carfagno were long-time collaborators having worked on 22 movies together and several episodes of The Twilight Zone. They both had numerous nominations and wins between them. The most notable work they did on The Shoes of the Fisherman involved the recreation of the Sistine Chapel in the Cinecitta Studios in Rome. The project took over seven months to complete and according to the AFI the interior walls and murals were reproduced “down to the last inch.” Composer Alex North, best known for his classical orchestral works infused with jazz and other contemporary styles, re-used his original fanfare for 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) which was rejected by director Stanley Kubrick, as the main theme for The Shoes of the Fisherman. 

In reference to Audrey Hepburn’s role as Sister Luke in The Nun’s Story (1959), film historian Sloan De Forest writes, “using the pain of her past, Audrey delivered one of the most powerful performances of her career.” Looking back, Hepburn would often point to Sister Luke as one of her favorites. But it’s a role that almost didn’t happen. The Nun’s Story was based on Kathryn Hulme’s best-selling novel of the same name. The character of Sister Luke was inspired by her friend Marie Louise Habets, a former nun who served with the Sisters of Charity of Jesus and Mary. The story of transformation, identity, forgiveness and passion appealed to readers but wasn’t rife with filmmaking potential. When it came time to buy the film rights to Hulme’s book, Paramount turned it down and Warner Bros. almost bailed when executive Jack Warner claimed that “no one wants to see a documentary on how to become a nun.” What saved the project was Audrey Hepburn. A major star at the time, Hepburn could easily carry a religious drama, even one without any real action or romance. Peter Finch was cast as the atheist surgeon Dr. Fortunati which gives Hepburn a pseudo-love interest and the film a bit of religious conflict.  In a case of life imitating art, Habets helped rehabilitate Hepburn after a horse riding accident on the set of The Unforgiven (1960), much like Dr. Fortunati tends to Sister Luke’s tuberculosis.

The Nun’s Story was a huge financial success for Warner Bros. but it experienced some pushback from the Catholic community. The National Legion of Decency classified the film as “Morally Unobjectionable for Adults and Adolescents”. The film also had the unintended effect of inspiring many nuns to leave religious life. Come award season, The Nun’s Story was nominated for a whopping eight nominations but unfortunately did not win any. The nominations included Best Actress in a Leading Role for Audrey Hepburn, her third of five career nominations, Best Director for Fred Zinnemann, Best Picture, Best Cinematography, Sound, Film Editing, Score and Screenplay.

Written, directed and produced by powerhouse duo Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, Black Narcissus (1947) is one of the most celebrated religious dramas. Based on the novel by Rumer Godden, the film stars Deborah Kerr as Sister Clodagh, a nun and Sister Superior who oversees a mission hospital and school in a remote village in the Himalayas. The story deals with themes of repressed sexual desire, mental illness and colonialism. While the film features strong performances by its leads Deborah Kerr, Sabu, David Farrar and Jean Simmons, it’s Kathleen Byron’s performance as Sister Ruth that really stands out. Her character transforms the story into a psychological thriller. And much like Sister Luke in The Nun’s Story, Sister Ruth has her own journey of transformation that leads to her abandoning religious life. A review published in Newsweek read “Among the many excellent qualities Black Narcissus has superb color shots and a uniformly fine cast… this is a strangely disturbing film, full of subtle antagonisms, and adult and sympathetic in treatment." 

Black Narcissus is particularly notable for its visual artistry and how it juxtaposes the religious with the exotic. It features sumptuous cinematography by the renowned Jack Cardiff, who won an Oscar for this film. Art Director Alfred Junge also won for Best Art Direction and Set Decoration. Both Cardiff and Junge were frequent collaborators with Powell and Pressburger having worked on other films such as The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943) and A Matter of Life and Death (1946).