just watch it!

brilliant actors, brilliant editing

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

The movie runs out of plot and jokes well before the end of a two-hour running time, long for a light comedy.

BEWARE OF BOGUS REVIEWS & REVIEWERS. SOME REVIEWERS HAVE ONLY ONE REVIEW. WHEN ITS A POSITIVE REVIEW THAT TELLS ME THEY WERE INVOLVED WITH THE PRODUCTION & THAT IS WHAT IS GOING ON HERE FOR THIS FILM! NOW I HAVE REVIEWED OVER 300 Christmas MOVIES. I HAVE NO AGENDA. I AM FAREIn this film a publicity man is escorting a woman body back to her hometown. In flashbacks we see who this woman was. In a nutshell she is an actress who just finished her 1st starring role. The day after the film is completed she passes away. The man escorting her body however is very sad. See not only did he never tell her how he felt about her he found out the studio is going to not release film. They are going to remake it. The film today is dated. Most people will get hired of hearing Fred MacMurray ending almost every sentence with "Baby". Putting that aside the film is still very good. It is a winner!

It has all the ingredients of a "Going My Way," or "It's A Wonderful Life."Wonderful Fred MacMurray stars as a Hollywood press agent who is smitten by Olga, played by Valli. Notice that when Valli spoke, she sounded just like Ingrid Bergman.In a total change of pace, Frank Sinatra plays a soft-spoken priest in the film from a poor parish. Also subdued, is the fine actor Lee J. Cobb, always rather loud in the film. He plays a movie producer caught up by what has happened.Olga dies at the completion of her first and only film and when MacMurray fulfills her wishes and brings her back to her home town, the film breaks out with the usual themes of poverty and reverence to the Lord.The Olga character also reminds me of the film, "The Song of Bernadette."A film of human values, reverence, simplicity, kindness and what we're all supposed to be made up of as we practice humanity and devotion to the Lord and to others.

The two things are, first, Alida Valli's whistling S's whenever she spoke. It wasn't what you sometimes used to hear in Texas speech (no idea what that was about; you don't hear it anymore. Even LBJ used to do it) or the whistling that used to be associated with false teeth. I don't know what it was, but it was certainly distracting. Second, I don't understand why everybody thinks she was so good looking; she was certainly no Garbo and not nearly as good an actress.I have seen The Paradine Case and The Third Man (another of my favorites), and I still don't understand why she was considered so hot at the time. Not all that great looking, not much presence, and not a really outstanding actress. Maybe my impression is not unique, and maybe that's the reason she had such a short career in American films.Am I wrong?

I discovered this movie about ten years ago, on TV. The next day, a co-worker asked if I had watched it; I said yes, and we both agreed we had been moved by it. For my co-worker, this was not surprising; she was a Catholic. But for me, a Jewish semi-secular humanist, it was odd to admit I had felt something close to faith because of a late-40s studio picture. The message of "The Miracle of the Bells" is that regardless of one's faith, there is the possibility of hope. The goodness that exists in human beings is not brought out by rigid observance to rules, but by acts of kindness and understanding. I don't want to say how this comes about or whether there really is a miracle in the Biblical sense. That is for viewers to find out. But the film brings tears to my eyes. Alida Valli is amazing-watch her face, her eyes, especially in the sequences where she plays Joan of Arc-she seems lit from within by faith. I love the scene in the Chinese restaurant, a scene of friendship and love. I wish this movie, like its heroine, was more well-known. I try to help it along by mentioning it whenever I can as one of those little gems, a quiet picture that may make you think, a nice example of Hollywood fantasy films of the 1940s, and a movie that will help you feel better if you feel down.I know I just rented it for that reason.