La donna del miracolo

Barbara Stanwyck is "The Miracle Woman" in this 1931 film directed by Frank Capra and also starring David Manners.

Stanwyck plays Florence Fallon, the daughter of a religious leader who becomes angry and bitter toward her father's congregation when he is ousted and later dies. She is approached by a promoter who launches her on a preaching career with an audience loaded with shills, while he collects money for an alleged tabernacle and makes payoffs.

Meanwhile, a blind composer (David Manners) is saved from suicide by one of Sister Fallon's radio broadcasts and becomes devoted to her. The two fall in love, and Florence, who has never been happy being a fraud from the beginning, becomes less and less enchanted with the business she's in.

The character of Florence Fallon was inspired, as was Sharon Falconer in Elmer Gantry, by the real-life miracle woman, Aimee Semple McPherson, a popular evangelist. She founded the Foursquare Church, still in existence today, and had hundreds and hundreds of healings credited to her. Barbara Stanwyck, about 24 years old here, gives a passionate performance as a conflicted woman, and handsome David Manners does a nice job as her blind beau.

Very absorbing early Capra, quite different from what he would do in the future. In fact, if you're not a Capra fan, you might like this film of his best of all.

This was indeed a strange curio from the early 1930s. This film was inspired by Aimee Semple McPherson's traveling evangelistic crusades of the 1920s. At first, Aimee (just like Barbara in the film) seemed sincere and over time, the attraction of fame and riches turned this "crusade" into a sleazy business. While not as cynical and amazing to watch as the later and very similar movie, ELMER GANTRY, this film is very daring to take on the topic of fraudulent faith healers. Given that this is one of Barbara Stanwyck's earliest films, she does an amazing job. The script is engaging as well and Frank Capra shows us that he's an excellent director with great things ahead in his career.

Fascinating throughout and well worth watching.

Barbra Stanwyck plays a phony evangelist named Florence 'Faith' Fallon. She's sick of preaching the Gospel and "curing" supposedly ill people (they're workers for her), but her unscrupulous boss (Sam Hardy) convinces her to keep on doing it. Then she meets a kind, blind man (David Manners) and falls in love. He loves her too and wants to be with her. But her manager won't let her go....

Still strong drama was (surprisingly) a bomb in its day. It's now considered one of the best movies of the 1930s. Stanwyck is just superb--you feel her pain over lying to people for money and her love for Manners. Even Manners (usually pretty bad) is very good. He's tall, very handsome and totally believable. You're really rooting for him and Stanwyck.

Sadly, this film is still very up to the minute. There are plenty of fake evangelists still at work taking money from good, religious people. It's kind of sad that a movie over 70 years old still mirrors problems that we have today.

Well worth seeing--maybe Manners best performance.

Stanwyck's performance in this early Capra film is underplayed, believable and quite charming. One can see how, from even this early stage, she was a performer of unique talents, perfectly suited for the new technology of sound. Her acting style is timeless, quite different from the histrionic style of the early talkies. Capra and Stanwyck took a story which could have been a ludicrously overplayed melodrama of the early 30's, and turned it into something quite captivating. Clever bits of exposition and some snappy dialogue round out this entertaining early entry in the Capra canon.

Clearheaded, consistently entertaining indictment of shear-the-sheep religion, from an unsuccessful Broadway play that starred Alice Brady, this quick-moving melodrama benefits from a terse Robert Riskin screenplay where every line counts, atmospheric Joseph Walker photography, and some very fine acting. Capra, as usual, makes his points quickly, finds humor where there's humor to be found (note the drunken party greeter repeatedly falling out of his chair), and gives even the minor characters distinctive personalities. Best of all is a blazing Barbara Stanwyck, who has a stunning first scene and doesn't let up from there, and the camera loves her. As the blind vet who adores her, David Manners plays blind very well, is un-self-consciously handsome, and minimizes the annoyingly angelic aspects of his character. It's over in an hour and a half, meaning it makes the same points as "Elmer Gantry" in about half the time, right down to the similar finale.