Where Angels Go Trouble Follows!

Old fashion Mother Superior (Rosalind Russell) is struggling to change with the times. Sister George (Stella Stevens) is the young rebellious nun. They take the girls of St. Francis Academy on a cross-country bus trip.

This is a sequel to the 1966 movie with Rosalind Russell returning. Hayley Mills didn't return. This one is missing her star power. Stella Stevens is perfectly fine, but not the same thing. Among the girls, I do recognize Susan Saint James despite her very short hair do. She is supposed to be the new Hayley Mills although that's asking a lot. With this one, they are trying to tap into the counter-culture and the changing times. The comedy is rather tame with some boy-crazy teen drama. The biker gang section is trying to do some interesting darkness. Milton Berle makes a short appearance as a John Ford type character. There are some interesting stops along the way, but it's not adding up to anything bigger.

I was pleasantly surprised that this movie still holds charm after all these years. I originally saw it when I was much younger, and the only things I remembered were the railroad tracks and the song that is played throughout the film. After watching it with a more mature film-viewing mind, it's still worthwhile. Extremely campy. Clearly dated, but very illuminating. The subject matter is probably more relevant if you have religious leanings, although they aren't required. And oddly, I felt like the song was very Monkees-esquire, but never knew that it had a direct connection. Search it out for a trippy, lovey time in 1968.

I wonder if the dance sequence was an inspiration for Austin Powers?

Columbia and Roz Russell had a huge hit in Trouble With Angels and this film is the sequel. While Roz Russell's peers had to do horror films to stay in the public eye, Roz -along with Kate Hepburn and Lucille Ball-remained top of he bill movie stars. Ms. Russell repeats her role as Mother Superior and this film is cast with a lot of great character actors including Mary Wickes and Milton Berle. I am pleased this film casts the Catholic religion in a positive light, and why not? Ms. Russell was a devout Church going Catholic.

Ms.Russell is likely the most glaring example of a major star and actress that never won an Oscar.

Stella Stevens appears as a young modern thinking nun sometimes at odds with Mother Superior. Ms. Stevens is to me the most under appreciated star I have ever seen pass thru Hollywood with a gallery of great performances where she played Hookers, Tramps, Drug Addicts and also delightful in comedy such as this one and a two movies with Dean Martin, The Silencers and How To Save A Marriage and Ruin Your Life. A lovely actress, who somehow never reached the true levels of super-stardom Ms. Stevens deserved and I feel earned. I suggest film students study Stevens work in Synanon, The Silencers, The Ballad of Cable Hogue, The Nutty Professor, The Poisedon Adventure, et al. A great actress who let her work speak for itself. In Stevens' heyday Stella Stevens worked with Gene Hackman, Roz Russell, Glenn Ford, Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Elvis Presley, Jeffrey Hunter, and film makers such as Hal Wallis, and Sam Peckinpah. I wish Stella Stevens had worked with Billy Wilder who would have surely gotten an Oscar nomination for this fine Actress.

In the first film of this series The Trouble With Angels the main focus of the film was on the students in particular Hayley Mills and the trouble she got into, always vexing Mother Superior Rosalind Russell. In Where Angels Go Trouble Follows the accent is on the nuns and in particular the generational dispute between Rosalind Russell and new nun on the faculty, Stella Stevens.

It's the same kind of fun that the previous film was. The girls at the Catholic Academy are all revved up by Stella Stevens to attend an interfaith youth rally cross country in California. She together with Bishop Arthur Godfrey persuade Rosalind Russell to take 3000 mile cross country bus trip with a picked group of the girls. One of them, Barbara Hunter gets to go via her dad William Lundigan donating the bus for the trip.

In fact Hunter and Susan Saint James are the troublesome pair of girls who take Hayley Mills's place in vexing Russell. Funniest scene is when after being ordered to wash the bus bumper to bumper by Russell, the two of them take the bus into a car wash they break into and try to use. Of course the two geniuses forget to close the bus windows before putting it through the wash.

Russell got to work with two of her former fellow contract players at MGM in this film. Robert Taylor plays the owner of a boys summer camp ranch and Van Johnson is a priest and head of a Catholic Boys School. Johnson and she never worked together at MGM and she and Taylor whom she said started the exact same day for Louis B. Mayer were both supporting players in a film West Point Of The Air and did not work together again until Where Angels Go Trouble Follows.

Dolores Sutton, Mary Wickes, and Binnie Barnes were all members of the convent in the previous film and repeat their roles here. Milton Berle is on hand as a movie director of a western on to whose set the bus stumbles on during an 'Indian' attack. With that eyepatch for affect and Berle makes you know it's for affect, it either suggests a spoof of John Ford or Raoul Walsh.

I liked the film because without condescension it shows the generational conflict between the two protagonists, Russell and Stevens. Neither is made to be a fool, both had very good points on their side.

Though it's set in the culture of the Sixties, the humor and wisdom in Where Angels Go Trouble Follows is timeless and will still be funny generations from now.

I prefer this movie to it's predecessor, because it is campy, nostalgic and has favorite actors like Rosalind Russell, Stella Stevens and Susan Saint James. I also went to parochial school in the seventies but enjoy the sixties references. Yes, this movie is a sequel, but evaluate it on it's own merits. I love the entire charming soundtrack by Lalo Schifrin and the title song lyrics and vocals by Boyce & Hart but am very disappointed that it is not available. I actually first saw it as a young adult in my church's school auditorium and found it highly amusing. It doesn't shock, create belly-laughs or extended philosophical pondering and if you are looking for those things, then choose another movie. One reviewer actually said that this plays like a "low-drawer Disney movie", to which I say absolutely not. The current Disney television shows and movies for kids often pander with extremely corny overacting, silly overused slang and idiotic dialogue. This movie does not take itself too seriously. It has dramatic moments but is NOT Shakespeare, SO MELLOW-OUT, YOU SQUARES! IT IS, HOWEVER, A LOT OF INNOCENT FUN.