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The Bells of St. Mary's




The motion picture academy is givingout its big awards this weekend, but I've been thinking recently about the sappy old movie, Bells of St. Mary's.


Bing Crosby, as Father O'Malley, is in charge of a parochial school. One of the students, Patsy, is failing (a course taught by Sister Mary Benedict, played by Ingrid Bergman, who here is simply the sexiest nun in Hollywood nun-portrayal history). O'Malley helps Patsy out, even ghost writing an essay Patsy has to submit, because Bergman's sticking to her high standards.


The essay is supposed to be about "my favorite sense," and the Sister expects some students to write about why they love various sights, others about why they love various sounds, smells, etc. But under O'Malley's tutelage, Patsy comes to understand that the idea of "common sense" is our faculty of combining the reports of all those special senses into one rounded perception of the world about us. Its a very good exposition of the notion.


For that matter its a very good movie, though you'll probably cry when ... uh, I'd best spare you the spoilers.


Anyway, there is a scene in the movie in which Patsy reads "her" essay to the whole class. Soon thereafter, Sister Mary tells Father O'Malley that she's on to him, "It was a very good essay indeed. It might have been written by, oh, a man your age." Or words to that effect, I'm working from memory here.


So I have a request. If any of my readers could find me a link to the full screenplay of this movie, so I can easily look up such lines and get them right next time I try to quote then, I'd appreciate it.


Thanks.  
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