Madonna mit den zwei Gesichtern

During Napoleon's war with Spain, a young postulate at a convent near Madrid experiences her first stirrings of romantic love for a passing British Captain; she breaks her vows and runs off to be with him, but instead falls in league with traveling gypsies after her beloved is presumed dead in a rampage by the French. Unbelievable concoction, scripted by Frank Butler from Karl Vollmöller's play, given uncertain treatment by director Irving Rapper. Is this material high camp or serious-minded? At times, it manages to be both, with the addition of some unintentional humor to lighten the load. Stars Carroll Baker and Roger Moore occasionally look bewildered or lost--and they get no help from Rapper, nor from their dialogue. The appropriately large-scaled production includes several set-pieces which are exciting and well-accomplished, though the plot is episodic, and each new chapter is more outlandish than the last. ** from ****

Where can I watch from. Loved the movie many years ago and would like my family to watch it.

After playing the ultimate teen sexpot in Baby Doll, Carroll Baker plays a young nun who was a foundling. The convent where she is a postulant serves as a medical hospital during the Napoleonic Wars. It's there that Baker starts doubting whether she has the right stuff to be a nun.

Who is giving her second thoughts is young Roger Moore, wounded nephew of the Duke Of Wellington. While he convalesces he also stirs something in Baker about what she's missing on the outside. When Moore leaves to rejoin his regiment, Baker follows.

But The Miracle happens. A statue of the Virgin Mary comes off a pedestal in the nunnery chapel and takes Baker's place. But with the statue gone the country around withers and dies, crops go bad, animals and people go hungry. Still no one knows in the convent that the greatest woman in Catholic history is among them.

As for Baker the rest of the film is episodic at best as she joins the gypsies, specifically Walter Slezak as a come-on for his various enterprises. She's also hard luck to any man who falls for her.

I couldn't quite buy Baker as a Catholic nun still the film is worth a look. Roger Moore when he was young and before James Bond was great at these stalwart hero roles. Gypsy brothers Vittorio Gassman and Carlos Rivas and their mother Katina Paxinou stand out as well as Dennis King as old roué of a nobleman and Gustavo Rojo a matador. All the men fall hard for her.

Someone like Sophia Loren would have been great in the title role. And more convincing than mid-west born and bred Carroll Baker as a Spaniard.

Since this is my favorite "guilty pleasure" of all time, due its histrionics and sheer cheesiness, I feel a bit uncomfortable being critical. Poor Carroll Baker suffers and suffers, but she's not as pretty as Roger Moore. Then there's Walter Slezak having a good time with his silly part. The plot is one of the most unintentionally funny screen plays ever -- a camp classic. If you are Catholic with a sense of humor, you'll really enjoy it. By all means, watch it once.

During the war of 1812, a young nun leaves the convent to search for a series of romantic adventures, and during her journey the statue of the virgin Mary descends from the pedestal and takes the young nun's place until her return.

Adapted from a fairly deadening and lunatic play, and tricked out with the old-fashioned Max Reinhardt pageantry; this immensely long and heavy-going amalgam of would-be religious parable and decorative period romance soon becomes numbingly risible and never lets up. A very curious choice for an emergent leading lady obviously, and unsuccessfully, fighting against her freshly established image, while the star supporting players - apparently intended as a balance - suffer from being tediously typecast. None of the actors have much opportunity to display their skills and the direction is below average. Quite a stupefying enterprise, but a sometimes engagingly silly one.