The Song of Bernadette (1943)

 This film was different from what I remembered.

Bernadette Soubirous (Jennifer Jones) is a sickly, unintelligent French teenager, the daughter of peasants whose life takes a dramatic turn when she gets a vision of the Virgin Mary. Suddenly, her fortune changes. Her asthma vanishes and her parents find regular employment to keep the family out of abject poverty. While tons in the small village of Lourdes, the town officials do not and too much of the film focuses on them trying to handle the situation pulling away from the far more interesting story of the young Bernadette, Jones's breakthrough role. 

Eventually, even the village priest (Charles Bickford) comes around and believes in what Bernadette claims she saw, becoming one of her biggest advocates but because of her vision and subsequent miracle fountain, he recommends (basically forces) her to become a nun, where she dies after a few short years later from bone cancer, declaring to her dying breath that she saw the Lady just near the city dump all those years before. 

While the plot was solid and can appeal to both the religious and skeptics alike, and despite the solid performances, the potential romance between Bernadette and Antoine (William Eythe) is woefully underdeveloped not to mention the previously mentioned issue of how the town authorities (Vincent Price and Lee J. Cobb) try to squash the crowds of people rushing to the miracle fountain takes up far too much screen time, leaving the title character off-screen far too much. And while I guess it was historically accurate, I don't like when a film of this supposed upbeat nature ends with a death. Grade: B+

Side Notes:

-Bernadette's last name is pronounced similar to the car model Subaru.

-Pay attention to the small but Oscar nominated roles from Anne Revere and Bernadette's tireless mother and Gladys Cooper as the nasty nun who refuses to believe Bernadette's story until she sees the wretched tumor on Bernadette's leg. 

-I'm glad they handle hospital waste differently now. Bernadette's father (Roman Bohnen) had to load up the dirty sheets with his bare hands and burn them. Upon returning home, he doesn't even wash his hands.

-I found that longing, concerned look the father gave a sleeping Bernadette at the beginning of the film a bit creepy though it was probably meant to show his concern over her labored breathing.