‘GOING MY WAY’
Please feel free to comment on my review.
Bing as a Catholic Priest
Apparently, ‘Going My Way’ is the first of two films featuring Bing Crosby as a Catholic priest called Father Chuck O’Malley. The next film ‘The Bells of St. Mary’s’ happens to be a sequel. I’m astounded!
It’s rare to find sequels to films in the 1940s. I know it happened with ‘On Moonlight Bay’ and ‘By the Light of the Silvery Moon’ with Doris Day in the 1950s, but nowadays we take sequels for granted. 😀
Released in 1944, ‘Going My Way’ was directed by Leo McCarey. In fact, the movie is based on a story by him. It was fascinating to see this movie and how different religious views were examined. 🙂
The film stars Bing Crosby with Barry Fitzgerald, Frank McHugh, James Brown, Jean Heather, Gene Lockhart, Porter Hall and Fortunio Bonanova in it. Most must’ve been pretty big names in the 1940s.
It was fascinating to see this film with how Bing played a Catholic priest compared to the other film roles he’s played which are mostly romantic lead parts. I think Bing did well as a Catholic priest here.
The film is about Father Chuck O’Malley who is a new young priest taking over a parish from an established old veteran. At first, the two don’t see eye-to-eye, but soon they grow to like each other.
I like how the story is handled between the two priests who live together in the parish. At one point, the old priest leaves as he’s upset to hear that Bing’s character is meant to be taking over from him.
Thankfully, he does return to the parish, coming out of the pouring rain with Bing to attend to him. Sometimes the comedic moments are subtle in this film but it helps to provide nice character drama.
There were five songs sung by Bing Crosby in the film. The songs are ‘The Day After Forever’, ‘Too-Ra-Loo-Ra-Loo-Ral (That’s an Irish Lullaby)’; ‘Going My Way’, ‘Ave Maria’ and ‘Swinging on a Star’. 😀
‘Three Blind Mice’ and ‘Silent Night’ also get sung in this movie when Bing’s Father O’Malley character gets some boys to sing in a choir. I like how Father O’Malley’s more open to people here. 🙂
That’s a contrast to Barry Fitzgerald as Father Fitzgibbon, who’s rather set in his old ways. I like how O’Malley doesn’t have heavy arguments with Fitzgibbon, since he respects him when living with him.
Frank McHugh stars as Father Timothy O’Dowd, who’s a friend of O’Malley’s in the film. I’ve seen Frank McHugh before since he was in ‘State Fair’. O’Dowd is in the same league of cheery fathers. 😀
James Brown stars as Ted Haines, Jr. and Gene Lockhart stars as Ted Haines, Sr., who are both the church’s mortgage-holders. Haines, Jr. may have committed a sin once he falls in love with a woman.
That woman happens to be Jean Heather as Carol James, who is a singer. O’Malley sees both Carol and Haines, Jr. and persuades them to marry each other via a song before Haines, Sr.’s wrath comes.
I like it when O’Malley dresses in a baseball outfit and gets the local juvenile boys to sing to become a choir. Apparently, the boys are the Robert Mitchell Boys Choir as St. Dominic’s Church Choir in this.
There’s also a segment of the film where O’Malley sees an old friend of his, Risë Stevens as Genevieve Linden performing in the lead role of the opera ‘Carmen’. I enjoyed the ‘Carmen’ section.
Apparently, Risë Stevens was an actual performer with the Metropolitan Opera (the Met) when the film was made. I’m amazed an actual opera star performed in this Bing Crosby movie. Very uncanny!
The rest of the cast includes Porter Hall as Mr. Belknap, Fortunio Bonanova as Tomaso Bozanni and Eily Malyon as Mrs. Carmody. The performances of the cast are really good throughout this movie. 🙂
When ‘Going My Way’ was released at cinemas, it was the highest-grossing picture of 1944. It won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Astounding compared to how films are made today!
Once World War II was over, Bing Crosby and director Leo McCarey presented a copy of the movie to Pope Pius XII at the Vatican in Italy. This movie must’ve been a ‘hot’ topic in the days of the 1940s.
‘Going My Way’ is a nice film starring Bing Crosby as priest Father O’Malley. I wonder where his character’s going to go in the next film. It’ll be intriguing to see and hopefully it’ll be a nice follow-up.
‘Going My Way’ rating – 8/10
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