The Miracle of the Bells (1948)
Overview
The body of a young actress is brought to her home town by the man who loved her. He knows that she wanted all the church bells to ring for three days after she was buried, but is told that this will cost a lot of money. The checks that he writes to the various churches all bounce, but it is the weekend and, in desperation, he prays that a miracle will happen before the banks reopen. It does, but not in the way he hoped.
Cast
Fred MacMurray
William 'Bill' Dunnigan
Alida Valli
Olga Treskovna
Frank Sinatra
Father Paul
Lee J. Cobb
Marcus Harris
Harold Vermilyea
Nick Orloff
Charles Meredith
Father Spinsky
James Nolan
Tod Jones
Philip Ahn
Ming Gow
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- Reviews
CinemaSerf
This is actually quite an uplifting tale of an actress (Alida Valli) who wants to be buried back in her home town. Snag is, her one and only film is considered a bit of a stinker by the producer (Lee J. Cobb) and so when she dies the day after it's completion, a well-meaning Hollywood press man (Fred MacMurray) has to resort to creating a bit of a public interest storm to facilitate her last wish. To that end, he manages to convince local priest (Frank Sinatra) to let the body lie in his church and for the bells to ring for three days... It's told cleverly, partially using flashback, in a gently paced manner that does demonstrate some of the finer aspects of humanity countered by some of the less kind ones. Unfortunately, it does tend to over-correlate the better aspects of the story with the church a bit too much; not exactly a religious white-wash, but certainly a little naively simplistic when it comes to the characteristics of the benign journalist against the evil, malevolent producer. On the face of it, it is quite a fun film with a good performance from MacMurray and a slightly implausibly saintly Sinatra; but just a touch too sugary for me...
