Thank goodness for Turner Classic Movies! I see the best movies on this channel. The Miracle Woman was amazing, and far better than 99% of our modern movies!
Stanwyck is awesome as a disillusioned preacher's daughter who falls prey to a con-man who sets up a phony church with "Sister Fallon" (Stanwyck) as the main preacher. At first Stanwyck is OK with this set-up, as she's bitter towards the hypocritical church-goers at her father's church where he died. But, her conscious eventually gets to her and she wants to get out of the racket. Her boss, a bad guy well-played by Sam Hardy, threatens her with jail if she tries to leave -- you see, he's managed to put everything in her name, so at the very least she could go to jail for fraud and perhaps even murder (the boss murdered the accountant but has "evidence" that links Stanwyck to it).
Along the way, Stanwyck has fallen in love with David Manners, who plays a blind ex-aviator. Her love for him was quite touching and believable, however I found Manners's character rather one-dimensional and not very compelling. Nonetheless, that did not detract from the story and I was rooting for Stanwyck and Manners to end up together (such was the power of Stanwyck's performance).
One final note, not really a spoiler but more of an interesting trivia point: In one scene, the boss issued a thinly veiled threat to Stanwyck's chauffeur and asked the chauffeur if he got his drift. The chauffeur said yes, then walked out of the office and closed the door. Then, from behind the closed door, we see what the chauffeur really thinks of the boss: the chauffeur FLIPPED OFF the boss and said "and your black derby too" (the boss was wearing a black derby). I nearly fell out of my chair and had to rewind the Tivo a few times to make sure my eyes were not deceiving me. I don't think I've ever seen someone flip someone off (this was a full-on middle finger flip-off) in a movie prior to say the 1970s or maybe even the 1980s. Then I remembered this was a 1931 movie -- 3 years before the Production Code went into full-force effect. It was just a tiny moment in this fantastic movie, but I loved the heck out of it!
By the way, I'm normally not a Frank Capra fan, but I found this to be a very good movie of his. Towards the end of the movie it appears that it will end quite tragically, and being that this was 1931 I was afraid it might. (Happy endings are a trademark of the post-Code days, not the pre-Code days.) A tiny part of me was rooting for Frank Capra to pull off one of his usual post-Code feel-good endings ... you'll have to watch the movie to see how it ended.
I easily give this a 9/10!
Stanwyck is awesome as a disillusioned preacher's daughter who falls prey to a con-man who sets up a phony church with "Sister Fallon" (Stanwyck) as the main preacher. At first Stanwyck is OK with this set-up, as she's bitter towards the hypocritical church-goers at her father's church where he died. But, her conscious eventually gets to her and she wants to get out of the racket. Her boss, a bad guy well-played by Sam Hardy, threatens her with jail if she tries to leave -- you see, he's managed to put everything in her name, so at the very least she could go to jail for fraud and perhaps even murder (the boss murdered the accountant but has "evidence" that links Stanwyck to it).
Along the way, Stanwyck has fallen in love with David Manners, who plays a blind ex-aviator. Her love for him was quite touching and believable, however I found Manners's character rather one-dimensional and not very compelling. Nonetheless, that did not detract from the story and I was rooting for Stanwyck and Manners to end up together (such was the power of Stanwyck's performance).
One final note, not really a spoiler but more of an interesting trivia point: In one scene, the boss issued a thinly veiled threat to Stanwyck's chauffeur and asked the chauffeur if he got his drift. The chauffeur said yes, then walked out of the office and closed the door. Then, from behind the closed door, we see what the chauffeur really thinks of the boss: the chauffeur FLIPPED OFF the boss and said "and your black derby too" (the boss was wearing a black derby). I nearly fell out of my chair and had to rewind the Tivo a few times to make sure my eyes were not deceiving me. I don't think I've ever seen someone flip someone off (this was a full-on middle finger flip-off) in a movie prior to say the 1970s or maybe even the 1980s. Then I remembered this was a 1931 movie -- 3 years before the Production Code went into full-force effect. It was just a tiny moment in this fantastic movie, but I loved the heck out of it!
By the way, I'm normally not a Frank Capra fan, but I found this to be a very good movie of his. Towards the end of the movie it appears that it will end quite tragically, and being that this was 1931 I was afraid it might. (Happy endings are a trademark of the post-Code days, not the pre-Code days.) A tiny part of me was rooting for Frank Capra to pull off one of his usual post-Code feel-good endings ... you'll have to watch the movie to see how it ended.
I easily give this a 9/10!