Going My Way (1944)
Directed by Leo McCarey
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Today’s Film of the Week features one of our favorite people in Hollywood, and I’m not talking about Bing Crosby. Bing was immensely talented, no doubt about that. Of course he was a terrific singer, a crooner, and in Going My Way he’s at his best, not when he’s singing the title song, which to my taste is a little too sweet, but when he’s got the jaunty “Swinging on a Star” (which Debra wrote about some time ago) or “Toora Loora Loora,” or “Ave Maria.” Bing was almost as fine an actor as he was a singer, and that is saying a great deal; he was a superb comedian, he played a great game of golf, and he did a lot for charity. Anyway, Father O’Malley won the hearts of Americans. But Bing wasn’t the man who won an Oscar for this film. The winner was our dearly loved Barry Fitzgerald, who plays the old fussbudget Father Fitzgibbon, and who really is the comic center and the heart of the film. Fitzgerald was nominated for both Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor. He won in the latter category.
The director was Leo McCarey, several of whose films we’ve featured here. I’ve discussed the nearly-forgotten virtue that McCarey often highlighted in his films: tact. I mean it in a strong sense, as the form of charity that understands how badly even a small bruise can hurt, if the bruise is near the heart; or that refrains from insisting on a right, or that bows out of the spotlight; or that somehow manages to steer through a human situation, when one thoughtless word can ruin everything. In Going My Way, the trouble is this. Father Fitzgibbon is a kindly and crotchety old fellow, whose very large parish, built up by his efforts, is getting too much for him. So the bishop, whom we never meet, sends Father O’Malley (that’s Bing) to the parish to assist, but really to take things over, yet to do it in such a way as will spare Father Fitzgibbon any embarrassment. Of course, they don’t get along at first. Father O’Malley is a bit too informal for the old priest’s way of thinking, and his sidekick Father Timmy O’Dowd (Frank McHugh, an Old Reliable for comic roles) doesn’t impress him, either. Meanwhile, some of the teenage boys have been getting into trouble, and a naive young lady has showed up who wants to make it as a professional singer, and the mortgage on the church is weighing heavily, and old ladies in the neighborhood help out by engaging in gossip, and — you see, there are opportunities for the working of a strong but not obtrusive hand.
The thing about Going My Way — McCarey also wrote the story behind the screenplay, and I think that it shows — is that we love the old priest, even when he’s stubborn and foolish. Fitzgerald carries the day, even if it’s Bing who saves (in a human sense) Saint Dominic’s. Father Fitzgibbon has one bottle of “the creature,” namely, Irish whiskey, which he drinks a very little of, on special occasions, throughout the year, just that one bottle, because his mother, whom he hasn’t seen since he left Ireland many decades ago, sends him one, every Christmas. That is meant to impress us in two ways: he is not a prig, and he is not a high-living fellow. He really has given his whole adult life to Saint Dominic’s, and we want his church to survive. I won’t say what the greatest threat to the church turns out to be; that’s a spoiler. I will say this. Debra and I think that the final scene in this film is one of the greatest in Hollywood history. We can’t tell you why without spoiling the plot. We’ll leave it perhaps for the comments.
By the way, Barry Fitzgerald had a kid brother, Arthur Shields, also a fine actor — check him out as the kindly Anglican minister in an Ireland, surrounded by Catholics who like him as he likes them, in The Quiet Man. Barry is in that film too, as the quaint and formal and mischievous chaperone Michael O’Flynn. But that’s for another day!
“Going My Way” can be viewed at no charge from Internet Archive. Click on the poster above to watch.
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I just watched (and enjoyed) this film a few days ago. I had put it off, although I knew it was kind to Catholicism, because I assumed it would be sentimental. Barry Fitzgerald adeptly skirted that kind of cloying performance. He was best in that late scene where everything is shown in the slump of his shoulders and the bend of his neck. The other priests were also likable and believable. I did think they could have worked in a few time-lapse shots to show the young ruffians developing into literal choirboys—the transformation was a bit too rapid. There were some timeless characters that most real priests would recognize in their flocks—-those wayward boys, the rebellious girl (and boyfriend), the troublesome gossips. I confess I kept wondering when the Ingrid Bergman character would appear—yet another film I’ve put off. Well, Rïse Stevens was an unexpected treat. I did not know she acted in movies.
Every time I see it I cry at the end…in a good way! Have you ever seen any episodes from the television show based on the movie? Gene Kelly took over the Bing role.