THE MIRACLE WOMAN (1931) B/W 87m dir: Frank Capra

w/Barbara Stanwyck, David Manners, Sam Hardy, Beryl Mercer, Russell Hopton, Charles Middleton

There are a lot of neglected early "talkies," like this one, that reveal a more versatile Stanwyck than her later work suggests. She's superb as tent-preacher Sister Fallon (modeled on the notorious Aimee Semple McPherson) who uses less-than-miraculous methods to inspire the multitudes.

While Stanwyck's performance is a primary reason for checking out this film, it's also interesting as an early work of director Capra's. The script is by Jo Swerling and Dorothy Howell from the play, Bless You, Sister, by John Meehan and Robert Riskin. Swerling and Riskin were ultimately responsible for writing some of Capra's finest films. But Capra, in the end, was not pleased with this film because he felt he himself had watered down the main character's darker side by creating a "heavy" (Sam Hardy plays Hornsby, a character not in the original play) who lures Sister Falon into conning people out of their money.

From Frank Capra: The Catastrophe of Success by Joseph McBride: "Despite Capra's punch-pulling, The Miracle Woman set some of the thematic patterns he and Riskin would later follow and develop in their most important work --- and which Capra would continue to use in the films he made with other writers. Sister Fallon's ambivalent public position as a fraudulent savior who confesses her sins to the followers she had deceived is most closely akin to Gary Cooper's moral dilemma as Long John Willoughby in the 1941 Meet John Doe (with Stanwyck, in that film, taking a role resembling Hornsby's). More generally, the Capra-Riskin protagonist frequently has to live up to a public trust of which he or she initially feels unworthy; the motifs of fraud, despair, self-redemption, and public confession recur in various forms and characters throughout Capra's subsequent work with or without Riskin. Another Capra-Riskin trademark that first appeared in The Miracle Woman was the spiritually redemptive love affair between a cynical woman and a more romantic, idealistic man --- in this case David Manners, playing a blind suicidal World War I veteran with none of the mawkishness one would expect from such a part."

From Variety's review of the film: "Film has two unusual aspects. One is its basic theme of an expose on evangelism. The other is a punch sequence at the opening, perhaps the strongest scene the feature possesses.

"Frank Capra's direction has practically wasted nothing as he traces the girl through her exhortatory racket to the thrill finish of a tabernacle blaze which, from the mob standpoint, has been exceedingly well handled. There isn't much doubt that Capra can do more with Barbara Stanwyck than any other director. Her performance here is splendid in unfolding plenty of fire, balanced by undertones of instinctive character softness and mood as she slowly falls in love with a blind boy who becomes one of her most ardent followers. The punch start is a country church on a Sunday morning in which the ruling faction has decided to secure a new and younger minister.

"Stanwyck is the deposed reverend's daughter who takes the pulpit to read her father's valedictory after 20 years of service. Halfway through the message she stops and sobbingly announces that her father has died at this point. Follows her launching a tirade, berating the church members for their action and shortcomings."