The Bishop’s Wife Re-Watch

After going against the prevailing wisdom in nominating George C Scott as the best Scrooge, I am now going to challenge orthodoxy once more. It’s a Wonderful Life is a marvellous film, and well deserving of its status as a Christmas classic, but it isn’t the best film in the immediate post war years. For me, that accolade lies with the largely forgotten The Bishop’s Wife, made one year later, which has the Christmas spirit and generous nature of the season that the other doesn’t have in my opinion. It’s a Wonderful Life is dark and has a lovely ending, but it definitely isn’t a feelgood movie! So, what does The Bishop’s Wife have that it’s more famous contemporary doesn’t?

The Story

Henry Brougham (David Niven), the Bishop of the title, is trying to raise money for a brand new cathedral to replace his congregation’s current dilapidated home. The main sticking point is that Mrs. Hamilton (Gladys Cooper), the wealthy widow who is proposing to provide most of the money, wants the cathedral built as a tribute to the memory of her late husband. Henry is conflicted so he prays for guidance. That guidance comes in the form of Dudley (Cary Grant), an angel, who is about to answer Henry’s prayer, but definitely not in the way he expected. It turns out that Henry has been so preoccupied with the new cathedral that he has been neglecting his beautiful wife Julia (Loretta Young). Dudley notices this and pays attention to her in an attempt to help their relationship. However, will he overstep both earthly and heavenly bounds when his thoughts for her start to look like they may be developing into more than friendship?

The Production and Box Office

David Niven was originally attached to this film as the angel Dudley, opposite Dana Andrews as Henry. When Andrews pulled out, Cary Grant replaced him. When, in a troubled production, the director William A Seiter left the film, he was replaced by Henry Koster who looked at the scenes that had already been shot. He very quickly came to the conclusion that the two lead actors were in the wrong roles, so he told Niven and Grant to change places. This didn’t go down well with Grant, who took a lot of persuading to go along with a decision he disagreed with. However, when he finally agreed to the switch, the role of Dudley would become one of the most widely acclaimed of his career. Interestingly, I could imagine Niven as Dudley, but I could not imagine Grant as Henry. That would definitely be a case of muscular Christianity!

The film had a very successful premiere, but it was unsuccessful at the box office because the perception was that it was a film fairly and squarely aimed at a religious audience. The studio, RKO, got round this by retitling the film Cary and The Bishop’s Wife in parts of the US, an unusual move given that the actor’s name was not the name of his character, In other parts of the US the tagline was in the form of a question, ‘Have you heard about Cary and the Bishop’s wife?’ In the final analysis, the studio put the figure of 25% on the increase in cinema attendance as a result of this changed approach to the publicity. It was a film that, at the time, was far more successful than the previous year’s It’s A Wonderful Life. The latter won out in terms of longevity, however, as a result of a mistake made when drawing up the copyright. That copyright expired in 1974 so the US TV stations could show it for free. As a result, the film became a Christmas tradition and quickly became associated with the Christmas season in a way that The Bishop’s Wife never did. In the younger cast, there were a couple of actors who connected the two films. Karolyn Grimes who played Debby Brougham, the daughter of the Bishop and his wife, had been Zuzu in It’s a Wonderful Life. Robert J Anderson who played a choirboy in a church scene was the young George Bailey in that film just a year earlier.

The Film

So, what makes this film so special to me? Well, at the centre of this film are two actors playing off of each other perfectly. Niven’s uptight Bishop and Grant’s laconic angel are the original odd couple and they have a chemistry that makes it work superbly. With Dudley clearly having great fun needling Henry the humour fizzes back and forth with perfect timing. No less important is the role of Julia, and here Loretta Young plays her with an air of innocence. She really likes Dudley but she doesn’t see him as any more than a friend even if he might see her in a more romantic light. Young makes Julia smart and funny, but she is oblivious because she only sees the best in human nature. Her performance is so effective that you completely believe that she is this contradictory person. If she was knowing or arch it simply wouldn’t work. The look and feel of the film are quite modern in a sense, despite being in black and white. For the time, the special effects are very good, and the decorating of the tree in particular is still marvellously effective. Some of the scenes with the conflicted Mrs Hamilton are quite contemporary as Dudley uncovers the psychology of a very lonely woman. Overall, the film is the entire package of comedy and romantic drama as well as some quite intriguing elements of psychology and theology. If you are intrigued after reading this review you can watch it on BBC2 on Friday December 22 at 9am, so maybe set it to record and see what all the fuss is about.