Sally and Saint Anne (1952) is a sweet and silly souvenir of a time
when movies unabashedly basked in a warm glow of nostalgia even if the story
was intended to be current and modern. We
have the strange feeling watching this that the filmmakers knew they were
preserving an era, and we, the audience in the future, are the proverbial fly
on the wall. As such, we may enjoy it
more than the original audience did.
Though you could call
this a family movie, in a time when most films were suitable for the whole
family this quiet little gem is unfettered by the dubious yoke of being
wholesome. It is wholesome, too, but it is also a sly parody of doctrine, dogma,
and a boldly tongue-in-cheek look at the peculiarities of the highly
ritualistic Catholic faith (getting away with it probably because Irish
Catholics love to make fun of themselves).
As such, it is as courageously unselfconscious about what it is as is the
main character—a teenage girl pursuing an unselfconscious friendship with a
saint to whom she prays, and her family of screwballs unselfconsciously
pursuing their own happiness.
Ann Blyth appeared in
three films released in 1952, all very different and all, unsurprisingly,
showing her versatility.
The World in His Arms with Gregory Peck,
which we’ll get to in a few weeks, is a glorious swashbuckling historical
romance where she plays a Russian countess.
The day after she finished filming, she was whisked to location shooting
in Colorado to begin
One Minute to Zero
with Robert Mitchum, a tense Korean War drama in which she played a United
Nations worker in the war zone.
Sally and Saint Anne, which couldn’t have been more different, was
the last film she made for Universal-International.
She gets top billing here. Her contract ended in December 1952.
Columnist Louella Parsons noted: “She started
there when she was fourteen, and everyone from William Goetz (studio head) to
the gateman has wonderful things to say about her.”
She would sign with her
new studio, MGM, which brought a new twist to her film career—and a
long-desired ambition—to sing in several big-budget musicals. We’ll cover those this summer.
In the meantime, she
ran out the clock on her U-I contract with several more radio appearances,
publicity chores (including a personal appearance tour of several military
bases in Alaska), and the peak of her popularity surely typified by the book of paper
dolls published by Merrill Publishing.
According to
American Paper Doll
from an article by David Wolfe, it was “…one of the most beautiful paper doll
books ever produced by Merrill Publishing.”
See this
previous post for a look at her paper doll likenesses.
Ann’s character in
Sally and Saint Anne may have played
with paper dolls herself at the beginning of the movie.
She ages from about twelve years old to
eighteen in this film, with remarkable authenticity.
It helps that, Ann being small to begin with,
several of her friends are taller, but Ann also moves with the gangly
awkwardness of a pre-teen, bounces with happiness, droops with disappointment,
and her young face registers a parade of unharnessed and unfiltered thoughts
and emotions.
Most especially that voice,
which we’ve noted as malleable in several films, here changes instantly like
flicking a light switch when she grows up—yet her performance is without
gimmick and completely natural.
We can
hardly believe she was twenty-three years old at the time.
We see she roller
skates quite well (she doesn’t do any tap dancing on skates like Gene Kelly,
but it’s still pretty good), and when an errant football goes astray on the
playground, she catches it in the old breadbasket, while continuing a
conversation with her friends, and fires it back like Joe Namath.
If you catch a glint of
shine on Ann’s teeth, it’s the braces.
It had to have been somebody's idea of a gag to put faux braces on the most perfect
set of natural teeth in Hollywood.
As the film opens, we
see by the graphic on a passing newspaper delivery truck that we are in a small
town called Middleton, and so we know from the beginning this is an ordinary
place of no great consequence. Despite
Saint Anne getting billing in the title, this is no religious epic; it’s more
like a buddy picture. There aren’t
really any miracles in the movie, either, except the very real miracle how a
girl blossoms into a young lady.
Ann is tearing through
her parochial school looking for her missing lunchbox.
Another girl, busily eating her own lunch,
shrugs her shoulders and laconically tells her to pray to St. Anthony,
“Findings things is his racket,” and “He’ll do anything for a few Hail Marys.”
Recess will be over
soon, and she’s wasted enough time, so Ann heads next door to the church, and
in a businesslike manner, yanks the chapel veil out of her school uniform
pocket and plunks it on her head as she genuflects upon entering, and heads up
the long aisle to plea bargain with the statue of St. Anthony.
But the bell rings and she can’t make it, and
she gets overrun by other girls rushing back to class, so Ann glances up at the
closest statue to her, Saint Anne, and says, “Will you help me find my
lunchbox, please?”
It’s not a very flowery
prayer, but as reverent as you can get because she really believes she’s asking
for the aid of somebody who really can help.
As she heads back to class, one of the nuns tells her she’s wanted in
the office of the Mother Superior.
Probably because Herman Shumlin and Lillian Hellman are waiting there
wanting her to read for a part in
Watchin the Rhine.
There, on Mother
Superior’s desk she sees her lunchbox, and she’s thrilled the prayer worked so
quickly.
However, it was actually returned
by John McIntire, who plays a Snidely Whiplash sort of comic villain in this
role that he really sinks his teeth into, especially his garish, gold
snaggle-tooth, which is why he is called Goldtooth McCarthy.
He found the lunchbox on the back of his ice
truck, where Ann had stolen a ride.
He
is an oily, conniving fellow, recently become a ward alderman and he has a
longstanding feud with Ann’s family.
For her punishment, Ann
has to write “I must not steal rides on motor vehicles” on the blackboards that
line all four sides of her classroom.
Reminds one of Bart Simpson.
I
pity the poor set dresser that had to really write all that.
After school, madder
than a wet hen and spitting nails, Ann stomps back to church, smacks the chapel
veil on her head, and has it out with Saint Anne like a very angry customer at
a complaint department. She calls Saint Anne
a “snitcher” (which cracked me up because it was one of my father’s favorite
silly insults) and with tears of frustration in her voice, she gives one last
parting shot, “And another thing, instead of making trouble for kids, you’d do
better to give that McCarthy a black eye!”
I love the next scene
when it is Sunday, and Ann is late for church.
Her father, mother, and three older brothers are already in the pew, the
Mass is half over, and Ann tries to sneak into a packed, quiet church in very
squeaky shoes, like she’s walking a tightrope.
Anyone who’s ever had to do this knows her agony.
The priest is trying to read announcements
and Ann’s monstrous squeaks tearing through his speech and echoing through the
church is hysterical.
Finally she gets
close to where her family is sitting, and her mother grabs her roughly and
yanks her into the pew.
I like that the priest,
played by George Mathews, is a curmudgeon, not one of the typical movie jovial
or saintly fellows, no Bing Crosby, Spencer Tracy, or Pat O’Brien.
He’s a just guy trying to get his job done,
squeaky shoes or no, and she’s stealing his thunder.
He tells us it is the first Sunday after
Easter, and one of the quiet joys of this movie is that it takes place in
spring.
There is a gentle restfulness,
the delightful sunshine and the anticipation of the warmer weather to
come.
That wonderful
end-of-the-school-year feeling we had as kids.
Collecting herself
after her public embarrassment, Ann glances up at the statue of Saint Anne, and
repeats her insult, “Snitcher!” and turning, being shushed by her mother, looks
across the church and sees John McIntire sitting in his own pew—with a black
eye.
The explosive smile of
awestruck happiness on her face is wonderful, and she snuggles down in her pew,
stealing delighted glances at Saint Anne.
She is not amazed at an apparent miracle—hardly; she has been spoon-fed
on tales of miracles and the lives of the saints since she made her First
Communion—she’s just tickled to pieces that she got to go to the head of line
for favors for once in her life.
This is
a girl who’s always late, always losing things, always in trouble at school.
Suddenly, a big-time saint answers her
prayer—she thinks—and it’s like not having to wait in the long line at an
exclusive nightclub because the star has come out onto the sidewalk and walked
arm-in-arm with you inside and escorted you to the best table in the house.
You are Somebody.
She solidifies her new
relationship with her now
amiga saint
by buying a smaller, but still hefty, statue of Saint Anne for her bedroom and
creates a little shrine on a small table with a votive candle.
Saint Anne becomes her roomie, the friend who
came for a sleepover and stayed.
More miracles
happen.
Not big miracles, maybe not
miracles at all, but to a twelve-year old, getting all her work done on time
and not being kept after school could seem pretty miraculous.
The other girls at school have problems, too,
and they ask Ann to put in a good for word for them.
Her reputation is growing around town.
But she’s no Bernadette of Lourdes (besides,
Jennifer Jones already got that job.
See
our past post on
The Song of Bernadette);
she freely admits of her prayers, “It don’t always work.”
But we have the feeling she just likes an
excuse to chat with her patron.
She writes
requests in a pocket notebook, and brings the matters up with Saint Anne.
Her moments of prayer are really more like
gossipy conversations with a girlfriend (“I had such a good day today, Saint
Anne!”), and it’s poignant and funny that she can so freely unburden herself to the image
of a saint, as naturally as if she were talking to a favorite aunt.
Then the transformation
comes from girl to young woman.
One
moment she wonders when she will be allowed to get her braces off, because then
she will be a woman, she thinks, and the camera pans down to her notebook
beside the statue.
Then, as if
continuing her prayer, her voice deepens, resonates with not just emotional,
but actually vocal maturity, her diction is ladylike, and the single notebook
has become a stack of them, as the camera pans up on a now taller (she’s
looking Saint Anne in the eye) young woman, a high school senior, with the
loveliness and poise we could not have imagined when she was a kid wishing
black eyes on people.
She talks to Saint Anne
about a new problem now.
Goldtooth
McIntire, still an alderman, has increased his political power and his wealth,
and he backed a city plan to construct a new highway through town—right where
their house is.
Their house will be torn
down.
Though this problem
will hang over their heads until the end of the movie, this is still a story
made up of a string of small everyday moments.
A glamorous new friend from Boston comes into her life, played with
snobbish sophistication by Kathleen Hughes, who, as soon as they get past the
gates of school at the end of the day, wantonly puts her hair up and applies
makeup.
Ann curiously, and bit enviously,
watches her friend’s expertise with lipstick.
The trip to the
drugstore soda fountain, and the wonderfully dorky sodajerk played by Robert
Nichols who works the counter like a Las Vegas showman. (We've discussed
romance at the drugstore here in this previous post.)
The handsome guy back
from college, played by Palmer Lee (also known as Gregg Palmer) on whom Ann has
a crush, but he goes for the high-tone friend, leaving Ann out in the cold.
The daily troubles of
Ann’s family of misfits: her father, played by Otto Hulett, a blustering working
man who fantasizes about choking John McIntire.
Her mother, played by
Frances (Andy Griffith’s Aunt Bee) Bavier, is funny, sweetly vague and a bit
dotty, but Mama rules the roost, constantly peeling apples or potatoes.
“You were the only one born in the hospital,
Sally.
Maybe that’s what makes you so
different from the boys.”
Her three brothers, an
unsuccessful musician and composer, played by Lamont Johnson; an unsuccessful
magician, who can’t even do a decent card trick, played by Jack Kelly; and an
unsuccessful boxer, played by a punch-drunk Hugh O’Brian, training there in the
living room by perpetual family guest Hymie, played by King Donovan.
Most especially, there
is grandpa, played by Edmund Gwenn.
He
took to his bed twenty years ago, but he’s not sick.
He’s just contemplative and sees no reason to
get up.
The priest comes to pay a sick
call, trying to get him to make his peace with the Lord, and they always end of
fighting, because Grandpa loves to egg him on with irrelevant philosophical
arguments.
The priest is grouchily
dubious about Ann’s taking petitions for prayer, but asks her to request a new
church roof, all the same. “I can put
you down for a week from Tuesday, Father.
If anyone drops out, I’ll push it up.
Grandpa solves the
problem of them losing their home. He
owns an empty lot across town, and decides they will move their beloved house
to that lot.
The menagerie is a bit
like the Sycamore family of
You Can’tTake it With You, and soon they will have one more hanger-on: the local
heartthrob Palmer Lee, home from college.
I especially like the
exchange between Ann and Mr. Shapiro, the local grocer, played by Joe
Mell.
His wife’s expecting, and he
desperately wants a boy this time because he’s already got three
daughters.
Ann writes down his wish in
her notebook.
“One boy.
Mr. Shapiro.”
He’s a jovial guy who
shakes his head at her innocence. “Why
would an Irish saint go out of her way for a guy like me?”
“Mr. Shapiro, Saint
Anne was the grandmother of Jesus.”
He shrugs, “So?”
“So she isn’t Irish at
all. She’s Jewish.”
Mr. Shapiro gives her
fond grins and free pickles.
But Saint
Anne takes a back seat for a while as Ann tackles her current woe of
lovesickness on her own, and undergoes another transformation.
Jealous of her Boston snob ex-friend, who is
latching onto the college boy on whom Ann has a crush, she listens to Grandpa’s
advice and gussies up for the country club dance.
The sodajerk is taking her.
Pop tells her and her
date that she must be home by 11:30, because the house movers are coming
tonight—it being easier to move a house, apparently, when there is less
traffic.
An older woman friend,
very chic (who recently got engaged because Ann filed the request on her behalf
with Saint Anne), makes Ann over into a
Vogue
fashion plate.
We know Ann is now
considered sexy because the minute she steps out the door, you can hear the
sultry moaning of a saxophone.
Dang,
that never happens to me.
I think we’ve
discussed this before.
A saxophone
always indicates the presence of a femme fatale in classic films.
Very handy, in case we’ve missed the point.
She wows them at the
country club.
A couple of quite funny
scenes: first, Ann’s dorky date, who is apparently a hepcat, manhandles her
into a frenetic dance, which after a few stunned and clumsy moments, she actually follows
him pretty well.
They are the center of
attention.
She artfully attempts to
maintain her pretended sophistication while involved in the silliest of
ballroom calisthenics.
College Boy is
bowled over at her sexiness, and departs with her to the bar, where she orders
a martini because she sees the word printed on a cocktail napkin.
Fortunately, the
bartender, new on the job, is a friend of her brother’s.
He looks after her, and puts plain water in
her martini glass.
When she realizes
this, after an anxious sip, she smiles with relief and catches his wink.
She boldly toasts the young man she is trying
to impress, “Down the hatch!” and bolts the water like a sailor.
Then she orders a double.
When Ann introduces the
bartender to her date, and beams, “He got the job!” we might assume that his
getting the job was another successful prayer to Saint Anne. By the way, Bess Flowers shows up at the country club dance. Like you didn't know she would.
Cinderella Ann and
College Boy ditch their dates, not a nice thing to do, and end up in his
convertible under the moonlight.
She
nervously braces herself for her first kiss, and gives him a shove when he gets
too passionate.
She runs off, arrives
home, long after midnight.
Unlike the
real Cinderella, Ann never loses a shoe, nor does her dress turn to rags—but instead
the house has disappeared.
Cinderella
never had a problem like that.
It doesn’t
take her long to catch up; the house is inching along through town at a snail’s
pace.
In the wackiest part of
the movie, the family is still in the house while the movers are dragging them
to another part of town, but the house is their safe haven from a baffling world in which none of them fit
in.
The conflict is
ratcheted up a notch when we see that Grandpa’s vacant lot is actually situated
between two brick apartment buildings that Goldtooth owns.
As the house slides into its new cozy niche,
Goldtooth, who had no idea this was happening, and who has been wanting that
empty lot for years, throws a fit.
The
feud heats up and several tit-for-tat events occur.
Look for Dabbs Greer as his harried lawyer.
College Boy, who, like
Hymie the fight trainer, and Saint Anne, becomes part of the family because he
won’t leave. He tries to wear Ann down,
because she won’t have anything to do with him since the night of the
convertible when he got too passionate and embarrassed her. The family accepts him, Mama shows him Ann’s
naked baby pictures, which infuriates her more, but in the end, College Boy and
Grandpa team up to solve the family’s problems with Goldtooth once and for all. It’s not really a miracle; it’s more due to
math and detective work. But then, as we
like to believe, (even if it’s not really in the Bible) the Lord helps those
who help themselves.
We never do find out if
Mr. Shapiro’s wife had a boy or girl. It
feels like the movie pulled a punch there.
Speaking of punches, the only time we are
given clear indication of a miracle being performed is during Ann’s boxer
brother’s fight, when he is gamely trying to win money the family owes to
Goldtooth.
He is, as usual, losing
badly.
Ann prays in her seat, and we
hear a light heavenly tone, quite different than the stomach-churning ring
bell, and we see her poor punch-drunk brother suddenly float along in a stupor
of footwork that looks like a cross between a ballet by Charlie Chaplin and
Monty Python’s Minister of Silly Walks.
He swings wildly and sucker punches his opponent, who drops like a sack
of wet cement.
Her brother passes out,
too, but since he hit the canvas second, he’s declared the winner.
KO by Saint Anne: The Patron Saint of Black
Eyes.
Another, perhaps more
everyday miracle, is when Goldtooth and the family bury the hatchet, and
Grandpa, who has given up his “sickbed” decrees that the family, Hymie, College
Boy, and Goldtooth will all go to church together. Grandpa hasn’t been in church in twenty
years. Ann, delighted, bounces upstairs
to get his hat and coat, and hers, perhaps the only one in the house to sense a
miracle has occurred. One has to be in
tune with miracles to recognize them.
As she leaves her room,
in a very nicely framed shot, we see this lovely young woman blow not one, but
two affectionate kisses to Saint Anne.
It may not be the proper behavior of obeisance to a saint, but her love
and gratitude demonstrates her confidence that Saint Anne has her back.
That’s a very special kind of reverence.
Sally and Saint Anne seems to be another one of those Ann Blyth
movies in DVD limbo (Doah!
No doctrinal pun
intended.
Oh, okay.
Mea
culpa.), but I think you can
still see it up at YouTube here for the time
being.
Come back next Thursday
when we travel to post-war Washington, D.C. in the 1949 comedy Free for All where Bob Cummings
discovers how to make cars run on water instead of gasoline, and Ann goes along
for the ride.
******************************
American Paper Doll from article by David Wolfe, 2013, #55
Ellensburg Daily Record, November 4, 1952, p. 6.
Milwaukee Sentinel, November 14, 1951, article by Louella Parsons,
p. 8; December 3, 1952, article by Louella Parsons, p. 8
St. Joseph (Missouri)
News-Press,
December 15, 1951, article by Louella Parsons, p. 4D.
****************************
THANK YOU....to the following folks whose aid in gathering material for
this series has been invaluable: EBH; Kevin Deany of Kevin's Movie Corner; Gerry
Szymski of Westmont Movie Classics, Westmont, Illinois; and Ivan G. Shreve, Jr.
of Thrilling Days of
Yesteryear.
***************************
UPDATE: This series on Ann Blyth is now a book - ANN BLYTH: ACTRESS. SINGER. STAR. -
"Lynch’s book is organized and well-written – and has plenty of amusing observations – but when it comes to describing Blyth’s movies, Lynch’s writing sparkles." - Ruth Kerr, Silver Screenings
"Jacqueline T. Lynch creates a poignant and thoroughly-researched mosaic of memories of a fine, upstanding human being who also happens to be a legendary entertainer." - Deborah Thomas, Java's Journey
"One of the great strengths of Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. is that Lynch not only gives an excellent overview of Blyth's career -- she offers detailed analyses of each of Blyth's roles -- but she puts them in the context of the larger issues of the day."- Amanda Garrett, Old Hollywood Films
"Jacqueline's book will hopefully cause many more people to take a look at this multitalented woman whose career encompassed just about every possible aspect of 20th Century entertainment." - Laura Grieve, Laura's Miscellaneous Musings''
"Jacqueline T. Lynch’s Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. is an extremely well researched undertaking that is a must for all Blyth fans." - Annette Bochenek, Hometowns to Hollywood
Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star.
by Jacqueline T. Lynch
The first book on the career of actress Ann Blyth. Multitalented and remarkably versatile, Blyth began on radio as a child, appeared on Broadway at the age of twelve in Lillian Hellman's Watch on the Rhine, and enjoyed a long and diverse career in films, theatre, television, and concerts. A sensitive dramatic actress, the youngest at the time to be nominated for her role in Mildred Pierce (1945), she also displayed a gift for comedy, and was especially endeared to fans for her expressive and exquisite lyric soprano, which was showcased in many film and stage musicals. Still a popular guest at film festivals, lovely Ms. Blyth remains a treasure of the Hollywood's golden age.
But we have the feeling she just likes an
excuse to chat with her patron. She writes
requests in a pocket notebook, and brings the matters up with Saint Anne. Her moments of prayer are really more like
gossipy conversations with a girlfriend (“I had such a good day today, Saint
Anne!”), and it’s poignant and funny that she can so freely unburden herself to the image
of a saint, as naturally as if she were talking to a favorite aunt.
