Product Details

• Actors: Moira Kelly, Martin Sheen, Heather Graham, Brian Keith
• Directors: Michael Brindley
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, NTSC
• Language: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Number of discs: 1
• Studio: Vision Video
• DVD Release Date: June 5, 1996
• Run Time: 111 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0000DHFG3
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #18,804 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
  • #99 in Movies & TV > DVD > Faith & Spirituality
• For more information about "Entertaining Angels" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Like many people, Dorothy Day (1897-1980) just wanted to find fulfillment in her life. Entertaining Angels: The Dorothy Day Story shows how she found it in serving New York s poor and being a voice for the voiceless. The film portrays twenty years in Day s life, during which she works as a Marxist journalist, leads a less than virtuous life, then undergoes a religious transformation that changes her life forever. The film shows Dorothy s struggle as she establishes the Catholic Worker movement and commits herself to a lifetime of peacemaking, battling for justice, and hands-on service to the poor. Run Time: 111 minutes Format: 1 disk, DVDStudio: Vision VideoISBN: 7-27985-00301-6

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Contains a powerful message that we all need to learn, July 24, 2005

By 

Patrick Madigan (Mesa, AZ USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Entertaining Angels (DVD)

An acquaintance at my (non-Catholic) church told me recently about a wonderful, saintly woman that he had known many years ago, who had devoted her life to helping the poor. When he said that her name was Dorothy Day, it didn't really ring a bell. But a few days later this movie was on a cable channel, and I knew that I had to watch this.

The movie totally blew me away! It was great seeing Dorothy slowly learning to accept a form of religion, then trying to apply that to her life. It seemed as though the more she applied the lessons, the tougher the lessons got. And the ultimate lesson of the movie was one of compassion: how can you care for people who won't care for themselves? How can you feed and give shelter to winos, prostitutes, drug addicts, and the insane? Add to this the difficulties presented by the Depression, and the fact that most people at that time thought that Dorothy was either evil or foolish.

I enjoyed the way that they portrayed the lead characters as being well-meaning but sometimes less than perfect, having doubts along the way about whether their actions really had any value (in other words, they were depicted realistically). Watching the movie, you can't help but learn vicariously through Dorothy's actions, evolving as she's evolving, until she reaches that level where she can finally see the good in everyone.

This is something that we all need to learn. We can't all become a Dorothy Day or a Peter Maurin (her mentor), but at least we can try to move in the right direction.

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars five course meal for a hungry mind!, April 6, 2005

By 

M. Morriss "M. Morriss" (Texas and Louisiana) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Entertaining Angels (DVD)

this movie is beyond inspirational. I had to watch it for a college religion class and I wasn't looking forward to it but I was extremely pleasantly surprised. I am not catholic but I am a Christian and this movie inspired me to live by the extreme Biblical standards that I have heard all my life. dorothy day actually lived those. she struggled, she cared, she worked. she is everything that I hope to be one day.
watch this movie and see a person that truly cares about other people more than herself! that is a heroic feat!

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Teaching Tool, March 16, 2006

By 

C. Symkowick-Rose (Sacramento, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Entertaining Angels (DVD)

I've been using this video for years in the context of morality and social justice religious studies courses. The movie is a good representation of Dorothy Day's life though it gets rather melodramatic at the end. It does a great job illustratiing the transformation that happens in Dorothy's life and how she and Peter Maurin develop the Catholic Worker together. Another critique would be that Maruin's role in the process is minimized but it is, after all, a movie about Day, not Maurin who generally gets less credit than Day. The movie certainly opens up a lot of discussion about faith, transformation and our call to social justice.