I wasn’t sure I had ever really heard of The Bishop’s Wife before, though the 90s remake with Denzel Washington does sound a little familiar. However, there was a very high number of movies from my watchlist leaving HBO Max this month. I had put this one on a while ago, and now that I have some more free time, well, this seemed as good a movie as any to get to.
And I am very glad that I did.
Bishop Henry Brougham (David Niven) is trying to get funding for a new cathedral. His life is going rather poorly as he deals with the sort of cranky old women who have enough money to maybe fund a new cathedral but aren’t going to be pleasant about it, putting a dark cloud over the household, particularly for Henry and his wife Julia (Loretta Young). But then a man comes by, going only by the name of Dudley (Cary Grant). Dudley says he’s an angel, he’s there to help, he will only tell David his true nature, and when he leaves, no one will remember him. That all seems rather convenient in this otherwise dismal Christmas season, and the opening of the movie already showed Dudley greeting people on the street, doing good deeds for people, and being an all-over pleasant man.
That, it seems, is Dudley’s true nature. He’s a generally genial, friendly fellow who does perform quiet miracles, largely when people aren’t looking, and all to offer small assistance, like helping Henry and Julia’s daughter to throw a snowball or refill a man’s sherry bottle with a liquid that has all the benefits of alcohol, but none of the drawbacks. He especially wins over Julia, showing her more fun than she’s had in ages and suggesting the angel can be tempted by the flesh. Oddly enough, the only person immune to Dudley’s charms is the man of the cloth who actually knows what Dudley really is. Instead, he grows impatient and even jealous of how much time his wife is spending with a man that, let’s face it, is a stranger. But if Dudley is there to help, what exactly is he helping Henry with?
A movie like this essentially lives or dies on the strength of Cary Grant’s considerable charisma. And, quite frankly, it’s on full display here. It isn’t hard to see why anyone would want to confide or befriend Dudley. He encourages others to follow their dreams, offers sage advice in the most subtle of ways, and shows nothing but a friendly familiarity with everyone he meets while, for the most part, only hinting at his true nature. The movie doesn’t shy away from the truth here: Dudley’s miracles, some of them rather impressive by 1947’s standards, make it clear he really is the angel he claims to be. And as an angel, he really isn’t going to go anything wrong. Henry has nothing to worry about in the end. If anything, the person Dudley is really there for is Julia, a miserable woman who used to be married to a man who did nothing but spread joy.
That does mean, of course, that Dudley won’t get the girl in the end, and the closest he comes to anything less than a quiet joy is when he comes to that conclusion. It’s tempting, he is Cary Grant, and he can’t do it because, as an angel, it may be possible to be tempted, but he cannot succumb. Ultimately, Dudley is there to help everyone, even Henry, but the key lesson here is he’s there to give people what they need, not what they want, and Henry’s temporary blindness to that is the biggest obstacle to his family’s happiness. Despite Henry’s profession and Dudley’s angel-status, I wouldn’t say this is all that religious a movie. The lessons here are gentle, nondenominational, and, in presentation, utterly charming.
Grade: B+
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