I pulled this film from the Nogglestead media library as a Christmas movie because I remember that it has Bing Crosby introduce his version of “Adeste Fidelis” which is on about 10% of the Christmas records at Nogglestead (or such was the case before I began buying new Christmas record in earnest about a decade ago) and that it has a related children’s Christmas program scene, but as it turns out, the Christmas scene is but one portion of the film. I might as well call Penny Serenade a Christmas film because it has a children’s Christmas program as part of it. Neither of these films is, technically, a Christmas movie. However, I watched it.
Bing Crosby plays Father O’Malley who comes to St. Mary’s, a church with a school that is falling into disrepair. He’s warned by the housekeeper that he’s in for a new experience surrounded by nuns, and he butts heads with Sister Superior (played by Ingrid Bergman thirteen years before Indiscreet and in full bloom) on a couple of topics. The film has three co-plots: A young girl raised by a single mother comes to the school and struggles to fit in; a boy has learned too well the “turn the other cheek” message of the school, but he needs to learn to box–and the tomboy Sister Superior is happy to help him learn; and a wealthy businessman is building a large office building next to the church on land they had to sell to him for repairs on the church, but they hope he will donate it to the parish even while he hopes to buy it from the church even if he has to have it condemned. Father O’Malley navigates these struggles and deals with a health issue that Sister Superior suffers from but that the doctor does not want her to know about.
The film has a rendition of “Adeste Fidelis” as I mentioned, but also a couple other Bing Crosby numbers. BUT IT IS NOT A MUSICAL. Don’t be hitting me with those negative waves so early in the afternoon, man.
The film is a sequel to Going My Way from the year before, for which Bing Crosby won an Oscar as the best actor. I’d be happy to find it in the wild, but old old movies are thin on the ground in the antique malls and book sales. It’s a bit of a testament, though, that sequels and “franchises” do not exclusively belong to the modern cinema.
Now if you excuse me, I am off to watch a Christmas classic.
