Going My Way

No less than Jean Renoir once said that Leo McCarey understood people better than any other Hollywood director, and that has never been more evident than with this film. Bing Crosby is Father O'Malley who has been reassigned to lead a struggling church with an aging head pastor, Father Fitzgibbon, played wonderfully by Barry Fitzgerald. O'Malley is young, kind, and more modern than Fitzgibbon. He uses his love of music (it's Crosby after all) to reform a gang of young hoodlums that all seem like James Cagney wannabe's. The Bells of St. Mary's was a sequel to this film (see my review below from April 18th), and while Going My Way doesn't have as many distinctly memorable scenes as St. Mary's, this is easily the superior film. Crosby and Fitzgerald are both excellent, and it's just difficult to dislike Crosby in the first place, but when he's playing such a likeable and loving guy, it's all the more. The Christianity of this film is taken as seriously as your likely to find in a 1940's film, and emphasizes the importance of selflessness and charity. It's perhaps a mite overly dramatic at points, but McCarey is truly one of the most warm and human of directors, and the ending is a real earned tearjerker.