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98 of 99 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The most sublime and moving of Hollywood's religious films, December 7, 2003
There are very few "religious" films that actually achieve a sense of spirituality that makes them work for believers and non-believers alike. "The Song of Bernadette" is one of those rare films, and owes a lot of its power to the Oscar winning performance of Jennifer Jones as Bernadette Soubirous, the young French peasant girl who in 1858 saw a vision of the Virgin Mary in a grotto near the town of Lourdes. While gathering firewood with her sister and a friend, Bernadette was told by the "beautiful lady" to return to the grotto every day for fifteen days. The common folk of Lourdes come to belief in young Bernadette's visions, while the authorities try to put a stop to the nonsense, and the church keeps its distance for the moment.As Bernadette, Jones is the calm center at the heart of the storm. The scenes in which Bernadette sees the Lady (an unbilled and pregnant Linda Darnell) are presented by director Henry King with a elegant simplicity. Bernadette has a strong and simple faith, which is how she is able to endure the battering by those around her. It is in her victory over these opponents that make this story work, and Bernadette's opponents are a superb cast of supporting players. Charles Bickford is Peyramale Dean of Lourdes, who has to deal with the idea that this lazy and less than intelligent peasant girl has seen the Virgin Mother, Vincent Price the cold hearted local prosecutor Dutour, Lee J. Cobb as the reasonable and scientific Dr. Dozous, Anne Revere as Bernadett's mother, and Gladys Cooper as Sister Vauzous, the nun whose jealousy of Bernadette has quite an emotional payoff in the film. A best selling version of Bernadette's story was written by Franz Werfel in 1942 and 20th Century Fox bought the rights to make an ambitious screen version which manages to avoid the faults of sentimentality. They also searched for a newcomer for the title role and looked at Anne Baxter, Teresa Wright, Linda Darnell and Gene Tierney before settling on Jones, who had small parts in two previous films as Phylis Isley and was renamed to have a clean slate as an actress. Winning the Oscar pretty much speaks to the success of their efforts. The film also deservedly won Oscars for Arthur Miller's cinematography and Alfred Newman's score. Ironically, Newman replaced the famous composer Igor Stravinsky on the film, and the second movement of Stravinsky's Symphony in Three Movements evolved from his original unused score. The long awaited DVD version of "The Song of Bernadette" makes up for the delay with some excellent extras, including the A&E "Biography" of Jones, a theatrical trailer, a World War II newsreel of Jones visiting the troops, and an excellent commentary track by two of Jones' biographers. This is classy treatment for one of Hollywood's classiest films.
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DVD ~ Gilbert Roland
DVD ~ Bradford Dillman
DVD ~ Audrey Hepburn
DVD ~ Sydney Penny
DVD ~ Rafael Rivelles
by Franz Werfel
