THE SONG OF BERNADETTE (1943)

Directing from 1915 to 1962, but mostly known for no-nonsense contract work @ 20th/FOX in the ‘30s, ‘40s & ‘50s, Henry King’s critical rep has long suffered from too many faceless ‘prestige’ assignments under studio chief Darryl F. Zanuck; this blandly respectful bio-pic with King on auto-pilot, just such an assignment.  (King also stayed too long at the trough.  Of his late work, only THE BRAVADOS/’58 showing him at something near his best.)  Taken from Franz Werfel’s bestseller about religious icon Bernadette Soubirous, a simple French country girl in the mid-1800s who stubbornly founded Lourdes as a shrine with a spring of healing waters thru her unwavering belief in visions of the Virgin Mary.  For King, it’s a typically solid, ultimately dull example of doing unto Zanuck exactly what Zanuck wanted you to do.  What the hell, everybody loved it, awards, box-office, new stars.  Seen today, it suffers from a lack of French character (Charles Bickford a French priest?  Anne Revere’s French mom?) and a town looking suspiciously like a redressed HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY set.  Jennifer Jones got the reviews as Bernadette (and an Oscar®), but the standout perf is from Gladys Cooper as one scary nun, a holdout against saintliness.  (And look for Dickie Moore delivering a note near the end.)  Everyone else, the yea & nay-sayers, acting strictly by-the-book.  Worse, the more respectful the film tries to be, the more ersatz it becomes.   Funny, scripter George Seaton easily able to make us all believe in Santa Claus writing/directing MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET/’47.  Go figure.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  *King seen at his considerable best in small-town Americana, downbeat character drama, and in just about any of his silent films you can get your hands on.  Four superior examples below.  OR:  Type Henry King in our Search Box for many more.    https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2016/05/twelve-oclock-high-1949.html  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2019/06/state-fair.html  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2017/06/deep-waters-1948.html  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2023/01/stella-dallas-1925.html

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  Composer Alfred Newman, who won an Oscar® for this score, brings back a bit of the magnificent ‘Hallelujah Chorus’ he claimed to have written for HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME/’39, but which was actually the work of Nazi-exile Ernst Toch.  Newman used it yet again, this time a fuller version, right at the end of his score for THE ROBE/’53.