The Trouble with Angels

My family settled down to watch this classic on Thanksgiving eve after our company left. It was the cream on the pie that day! We laughed together and totally relaxed. How wonderful and refreshing to view a movie that treats nuns with respect. A show that demonstrates how teachers can help young students under their care. All done in a very funny and creative way. Rosalind Russell gives a stellar performance here. Haley Mills is great! I am a teacher and this movie shows how even the most stubborn student is affected by good role models. You will laugh and that is good for the soul and heart! We bought two copies of this movie for Christmas and gave them as gifts. Treat yourself and your family to a delightful one of a kind movie. Purchase it and watch once a year!

No-one's finest hour. This inexplicably popular 'comedy' actually spawned a sequel. ("Where Angels go, Trouble Follows!"), though once round the block should be enough for anyone. It's set in a school for girls run by nuns though these are no "Magdalene Sisters". This is all sweetness and light and sentimentality with a 'tyranical' Mother Superior who is more Glinda than the Wicked Witch of the West. Rosalind Russell does what she can with the part and other nuns include Binnie Barnes and Mary Wickes, who played nuns so often she should have been canonized. Principal among the girls is Haley Mills who was 20 at the time but who could still pass as a teenager. Gypsy Rose Lee also turns up, very briefly, as a teacher of 'interprative dance' while an uncredited Jim Hutton also gets his couple of minutes in the shade. This real surprise is that this sentimental mess was directed by none other than Ida Lupino for whom obviously this was nothing more than a job of work. Hopefully they paid her well, (it was her last film as a director though she continued to act and direct for television). With a better script this might have amounted to something; as it is it is eminently missable.

One of my favorites when I was 15, I love this even more now. The movie is whimsical and reverent without being sappy or silly. Some marvelous wit, and surprisingly subtle lampooning of convention. The cameos of Gypsy Rose Lee, Jim Hutton, and Ronnie Troup are all hoots. And June Harding almost manages to steal the film from Ms. Russell and Ms. Mills. Jim Boles, Mary Wickes, and Binnie Barnes are also hysterical in their supporting roles. Good fun and good life lessons for the entire family.

A heartwarming, poignant, funny film, with first rate performances from the entire cast. Mills and Russell are stand-outs, as is June Harding, as Mills' "stooge". Episodic in its approach, the film manages to build to a totally cohesive climax. Beautifully directed by Ida Lupino, with a great score by Jerry Goldsmith (Poltergeist, Star Trek - The Motion Picture, The Omen, The Mummy). Even in this "sophisticated" world, this film will be enjoyed by the entire family. A hit in its day, spawning a less than satisfying sequel (Where Angels Go Trouble Follows), "The Trouble With Angels" is a wonderful film. See it!

Mother Superior Rosalind Russell has her hands full with two brats at Catholic boarding school. I wanted to like this more than I did. Russell is good as are the other adults. But the kids just irked me. Hayley Mills in particular was very annoying. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason for her bratty behavior. She was like a female Dennis the Menace. She just kept getting into trouble. For some reason there's little time spent on story here. It's like a series of vignettes instead of a cohesive plot as the movie goes from one incident after another with little room to breathe. The comedy is all very broad and seems to rely upon you enjoying the hijinks of Mills and her sidekick (June Harding). Since I didn't enjoy their antics it left me with very little to laugh at. The last half of the movie is a little better as there are more serious and touching moments. However the ending felt pretty contrived. Obviously this is a sentimental and nostalgic favorite for many. I can sympathize with that. I wish I liked it more. But I found it ultimately disappointing.

A tour de force for Hayley Mills, the most gifted juvenile actress of her generation. She makes the contrived material about adolescent escapades in a Catholic girls' boarding school look believable. It's a rarity for a Hollywood comedy to show a teenage girl who is intelligent and sensitive, and director Ida Lupino should be applauded for it. Mills is ably assisted in her antics by her comrade-in-arms played by June Harding, who shows how to put the awkwardness in adolescence. They also have a truly touching scene together near the end. The movie is also notable for the best latter-career work of high-strung movie star Rosalind Russell, who gives a restrained performance for a change as the Mother Superior. She uses quite a few arched eyebrows, however. Watch for a rare cameo by the great Burlesque queen Gypsy Rose Lee, who plays a dotty instructor of dance and ladylike comportment.

I am a guy, and I love "The Trouble with Angels"! Now I feel better, I've admitted it. I remember seeing this as a kid and it made a great impression on me. The end is especially poignant and if you've never seen the movie, it can get to you. Plus, any movie that has a character named "Marvel Anne" is worth a look! Hayley Mills and Rosalind Russell were in better movies in their career, but none I like better than this one.

Fifteen years earlier Ida Lupino could have made a challenging film about the abuse of foundlings by an institution, and she later gave a terrifying performance as a brutal prison matron in a TV movie called 'Women in Chains (1972); but this (the only colour film she directed), feels more like a continuation of Hayley Mills' time at Disney, and looks as if it was made for television. (It might have been more interesting with Lupino in Russell's part.) St. Francis Academy seems more like a finishing school for young ladies than a religious institution; and there's a remarkable absence of God talk (there'd be plenty if it was remade today). We're told what a tyrant Mother Superior Rosalind Russell is without being shown much evidence of this, and how naughty Mills is, while they trade abuse with Russell claiming Mills belongs in San Quentin, but usually with a twinkle in her eye and a smile playing about her lips; and she never settles arguments in the traditional manner by beating her. Russell also seems to have plenty of time away from her desk free of the burden of administrative duties, instead constantly popping up Miss Danvers style to interrupt Hayley's mischievous little schemes before they can usually fully take wing.

Two teenagers make trouble for the Mother Superior of a Catholic girls boarding school (their pranks include putting soap in the sugar bowl!). After her contract with Disney ran out, Hayley Mills became an independent commodity, choosing this medium-budget family film from Columbia as her first feature free from the Mouse. Rosalind Russell is well-cast as her adversary, who stiffens up and grimaces when faced with Hayley's hijinks (which are a bit juvenile for a young woman of her age). Newcomer June Harding isn't much of an accomplice (she has little presence on the screen) and the film's production is disappointing. Jerry Goldsmith contributes a lilting score. Followed by a Mills-less sequel, "Where Angels Go Trouble Follows!" in 1968. **1/2 from ****

They don't make 'em like this anymore, alas. There was a time when you could see great "B" movies, like this one, in theaters. They were entertaining pieces, produced for less money, but with just as much fun as their "A" siblings. You don't find many "B" movies anymore (at least good ones) and it's a shame. Even cable and tv movies don't live up to some of these classics. Hayley Mills and Rosalind Russell are the two opposing forces in this battle of wills, and they're pretty evenly matched. Russell sees some of herself in young Mills, as she comments to Marge Redmond. Mills comes to realize that Russell represents something she has been looking for, but has been unable to define, a sense of community and purpose. Both are orphans who were raised by relatives, with dreams of fashion and glamour, but longing for something greater. The film treats the Catholic Church and work of the nuns with far greater respect than most films, particularly more modern examples, like Sister Act. We see the depth of their faith and their commitment to serving their fellow human beings. I was raised Protestant and have little experience with the Catholic Church, but have always found a deeper respect for the less glamorous work that the nuns often carry out, compared to their male brethren. The film is full of great character moments and some laugh-out-loud gags. It has a warmth and charm that grows with age. It's a shame that Haley Mills didn't perform in more films like this, as an adult; she had a real flair for comedy and could shift to drama just as easily. It's understandable for an actress to want to move into more serious parts, but I really think she passed up some great opportunities. This was a film that deserved a sequel. Too bad that the one it got didn't live up to it's predecessor. It would be interesting to see Haley Mills return as Mary, carrying on the tradition of Rosalind Russell's Reverend Mother, with some "scathingly brilliant" ideas. Unfortunately, I doubt Hollywood would be up to the task.