GrafZeppelin127

I distinctly remember an episode of this show in which Grandpa and Mr. Pinner visit a resort hotel of some kind that had advertised a rate of $25 per day all-inclusive, but then piled on the extras to the tune of hundreds of dollars; Grandpa refused to pay and the two were sent to jail, where they bickered back and forth:

MR. PINNER: "Grandpa! I just had a brainstorm! You pay the bill, and then we write that hotel a real nasty note." GRANDPA: "Tell your brain the storm's over. You want out, you can pay your way out. But I'm not budging until I get my day in court. I don't care if I grow old in here." MR. PINNER: "You are old." GRANDPA: "My. Forty-five minutes in the slammer and some people do forget their party manners."

They eventually get out of jail by alerting the hotel's corporate owner to the scam. Why I remember this so vividly I can't fathom, but it was a nice, clean, simple morality play put on by some veteran actors -- which, apparently, no one else watched. Apparently the episode title, synopsis, and indeed the entire series, are entirely lost to history.

Watch this movie once, with the idea that Fr. Flynn is guilty. Then watch it again, with the idea that he is innocent. Or do it the other way around. Shanley's dialogue is so perfectly, brilliantly ambiguous that this is really two movies in one. Both are powerful, and both possibilities are horrible to contemplate, for very different reasons.

Having seen both the play (during its original run with Cherry Jones and Brian F. O'Byrne) and the film, the play obviously has the edge because it's more intimate, consisting only of four characters. The film expands its milieu (as film versions of plays typically do) but I think having the schoolchildren, other nuns, and school staff present in the film diminishes it just a bit. The play, of course, is about "knowing" things that we don't actually know, and the movie shows us some of what the play leaves to the imagination. Although the ultimate question remains ambiguous, the viewer may be distracted by looking for clues in the other characters, especially the kids.

What gives this piece its power, though, on both stage and screen, is its stubborn refusal to answer that ultimate question, or to provide any solid evidence of either conclusion, leaving it entirely up to the viewer to judge these characters.