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Dec 03, 2016mswrite rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
Warm and friendly mid-sixties family entertainment, the kind Hollywood just doesn't make anymore, directed with heart and verve by Golden Era screen legend Ida Lupino. "The Trouble With Angels" features a terrific cast headed by the peerless Rosalind Russell ("His Girl Friday," "Auntie Mame," Mama Rose in the 1962 screen version of "Gypsy") as the wise but exasperated Mother Superior of St. Francis Academy For Girls matching wits and wills with Mary Clancy, a rebellious new student played by the winning Hayley Mills, the British "it" girl of her generation. Russell and Mills have a marvelous chemistry, their scenes resonate with humor, tension, biting wit, and moments of tenderness. Watch for two especially potent scenes: the turning point where Mother Superior shares her girlhood dreams and memories with Mary as she rescues Mary's efforts to make a party dress; and the almost unbearably poignant sequence where Mary, confounded by Mother Superior's apparent indifference to a sudden, shocking death among the sisters, spies on her solitary chapel vigil--and finds the dignified older woman weeping inconsolably over the coffin. Great film scores are the unseen costar in movies; the best of them illuminate both the characters' exterior actions and their interior thoughts and feelings. Jerry Goldsmith's music throughout much of "The Trouble With Angels" is appropriately light and playful, reflecting the hilarious misadventures of the feisty, scheming Mary ("I've go a scathingly brilliant idea!") and her guileless pal, Rachel. In the chapel scene the music becomes hauntingly melancholy, underscoring both the aching sadness of the moment and the beauty of Mary's growing maturity and wisdom. Marge Redmond shines as Sister Ligouri, Mother Superior's supportive and wryly funny confidant, as does the talented June Harding as the gawky, hapless Rachel. It's impossible not to like Mary and Rachel; amid the turgid melodramas and beach blanket bikini studio flicks of the 1960s were here and there some excellent films that explored the special bond between adolescent girls facing life transitions. (1964's "The World of Henry Orient" also comes to mind.) Hayley Mills and June Harding have such a natural chemistry together it's a pity they didn't re-team for another film. (Neither appear in the 1968 sequel "Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows.") Redmond would revisit the role of nun as sympathetic sounding board the following year in the cutesy sixties tv series "The Flying Nun," opposite Sally Field. This is a wonderful family film, especially for young girls, and highly recommended.