A Mulher Miraculosa

"Beware of false prophets which will come to you in sheep's clothing… 'The Miracle Woman' is offered as a rebuke to anyone who, under the cloak of Religion, seeks to sell for gold, God's choicest gift to humanity - FAITH," introduces this grand collaboration between director Frank Capra and Barbara Stanwyck (as Florence "Faith" Fallon). A pastor's daughter, Ms. Stanwyck opens the drama by taking her recently deceased father's congregation to task for causing his death. Among the worshipers is sleazy Sam Hardy (as Bob Hornsby). Impressed by Stanwyck's Biblical knowledge and preaching skills, Mr. Hardy offers to become her manager...

Stanwyck hears Hardy pontificate, "Religion is like everything else - great if you can sell it, no good if you can give it away." She becomes a successful Christian evangelist, delivering fiery sermons to her tabernacle flock and hosting a successful radio show. The money rolls in, but sister Stanwyck is filled with isolation and guilt. Meanwhile, suicidal songwriter David Manners (as John Carson) decides not to jump out of his window when he hears Stanwyck on the radio. Also a blind ventriloquist, Mr. Manners endeavors to meet Stanwyck. She mistakes him for one of her shills, and predicts God will cure his blindness. Eventually, he heals hers...

This should have been Stanwyck's first "Best Actress" notice. The "Academy Awards" were later kind, and the "New York Film Critics" joined them in recognizing her work in "Double Indemnity" (1944). However, in hindsight, "The Miracle Woman" is undeniably award-worthy. Also notable is fine work from Mr. Capra, who worked wonders with Stanwyck and co-star Manners, perfectly cast as the blind ventriloquist, along with skilled photography by Joseph Walker, and obviously strong supporting roles. The film feels like a Bob Dylan or Pete Seeger song come to life; like those, the story fascinates with a timeless relevance.

********* The Miracle Woman (7/20/31) Frank Capra ~ Barbara Stanwyck, David Manners, Sam Hardy, Beryl Mercer

A preacher is tired of not getting through to his parishioners, and they are tired of him. When he is asked to leave and tries to make his final sermon, he falls ill and is unable to. Daughter Barbara Stanwyck gets behind the pulpit and tells the church they never appreciated her father and tells them off. An out-of-towner, who's a chiseler of some kind and who was passing through, was in the church and heard her. He persuades her to preach. ('Cause she has the talent for it, he says. And, that'll show these people.)

She becomes a faith healer, spouting the words and claiming to heal people, of whom this guy pays to act sick and volunteer to "be cured." Enter David Manners, who really is blind and who stands up out of pure devotion to God and the Word. He doesn't get cured but only gets closer to Babs.

But that's not what's center stage, as director Frank Capra throws at us a very personal film about faith and our relationship with God. Stanwyck tires of the scam and the plot plays out like something out of today's films, very dramatically and with a Judgment Day touch to it.

I was very impressed with everything about this movie, with Stanwyck as usual, with Manners who is probably given his best movie role here, and with the whole presentation and treatment of the subject matter which doesn't talk down to the viewer and take lightly of the situations. The viewer is immersed in her world completely.

Kudos to Frank Capra, who probably made his most adult film here, with the exception of The Bitter Tea of General Yen, also with Stanwyck. Miss this and you miss Capra and Stanwyck at their best.

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.

Many of Capra's films point out the nobility of small town America, but here he seems to be doing just the opposite - bringing to light how one small town has just fired their preacher for the unpardonable sin of aging and hired a younger man to replace him without a backwards glance to the consequences to the displaced older man. The old preacher dies dictating his last sermon. We don't see this but we hear it from his daughter Florence played by Barbara Stanwyck. The farewell sermon she gives the parishioners has them walking out - or should I say running - as she calls them murderers, thieves, adulterers, closet drunks - being the preacher's daughter she knows where the bodies are buried and she tells them. A con man is in the congregation for some reason and he says if she wants to get even - and rich - she should run a faith healing con on this same type of small town hypocrite. The world is full of them according to her mentor.

The plan works - Florence is as fiery as a fake preacher as she was as a real one and soon the two are rolling in dough with the help of lots of paid fakers. What makes it easy is that the crowd seems to be there for a circus more than a sermon and they do certainly get their money's worth and ask no questions. However, Florence soon has double trouble on her hands. It turns out that her mentor has a darker side than she figured on who keeps her on a very short leash, and then there is the appearance into her life of a man who was blinded in WWI - David Manners as John, a failed songwriter, who claims one of her radio sermons kept him from jumping from his high rise apartment window to his death.

What is good about this film? Stanwyck of course. Just a couple of years after sound came into films the lady is fire and ice with the spoken word. Plus even in these early films Capra is visiting the themes of depression, class warfare, suicide, the forgotten man, the power of the individual, and the madness and fickleness of the mob - all which show up in his later efforts.

What holds the film back is the rather unexplained relationship between Manners' and Stanwyck's characters. There just doesn't seem to be any reason for them to be together other than that each would be completely alone in the world as far as human comfort goes without the other due to their isolated existences. In spite of that, their relationship and scenes together are believable.

Overall, this film does a good job of exploring the fact that for those who lose their faith, it's usually not God that's hard to love but rather the people He created due to their overall indifference towards anything outside of their own little world.

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.