The Miracle Woman

Fascinating cautionary tale loosely inspired by the Aimee Semple Macpherson affair, with Stanwyck as a minister's daughter - seeking revenge against the faithful who hounded her father to his death - who teams up with a wily conman (Hardy) to become big business as an evangelist. Stunning camerawork from Joseph Walker makes a joy of the evangelistic razzmatazz (climaxed when Stanwyck does her preaching from a lion's cage), but is equal to the more delicate shading of the comeuppance in which Stanwyck sees the true light after bringing illumination to a blind songwriter. The end sees her a humble soldier in the Salvation Army, but - so beautifully do Stanwyck and Manners play out the love affair, and so perfectly does Capra direct it (with the tenderness, almost, of Borzage) - that you don't feel at all like laughing. (From the play Bless You, Sister by John Meehan and Robert Riskin.