Jeanskynebu the audience applauded

FeistyUpper If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Humbersi The first must-see film of the year.

Kien Navarro Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

mark.waltz Minister's daughter Barbara Stanwyck has had enough of the hypocrites of her father's congregation as she takes the pulpit to tell them off in one of the great cinematic splendors of its day. This is Barbara Stanwyck's second of five Frank Capra films, and she is absolutely superb in it. From that exposition of her father's clergy's immorality to her own by becoming a famous evangelist who is out for what she can take, it is very apparent that this is Capra's call for exposing the hypocrisy he believed the very real Aimee Semple McPherson was doing with her showy displays of religious dramatics and so-called paranormal cures. Stanwyck gets to rise up to call the Lord in, splendidly set on some very art-decco church platforms, filled with wild animals in cages and every lavishness she could think of to manipulate her congregation into giving so she could provide them more of a show.Things begin to change for her when a handsome blind man (David Manners) comes to her for a cure, and she falls head over heels in love with him. This puts a damper on her partner's (Sam Hardy) schemes, and ultimately leads to tragic events that could cost many people their lives. Capra had risen from assistant film maker during the silent era to Columbia's biggest director, and this is his first true classic. Everything about it screams "spectacle", much like Joseph Von Sternberg's films did for Dietrich over at Paramount. Columbia got to "rise up" out of the list of poverty row studios, and with this film, Stanwyck quickly became one of Hollywood's "A" list stars.There's comedy thrown in with the apply named "Gussie" (Thelma Hill), a chatty sort of "Cathy", Manners' Charlie McCarthy like dummy who is his constant companion (and possibly jealous of Stanwyck) and the warm hearted Beryl Mercer. But it's Stanwyck who comes off the winner here, aided from an iffy start in films by Capra's guidance, and assisted here with a brilliant script and some really stunning photography. It is obvious that this is one of the first films to show how far technology had come in the movies since the change of the decade, and even today, it reveals a lot about the human soul through its deep look into what makes Stanwyck's foolish character change and literally come back to life just as she had brought life back to the lonely Manners.

bkoganbing Barbara Stanwyck and Frank Capra did four films together in the early Thirties for Columbia and as this was Capra's early work it's of varying quality. The Miracle Woman has Barbara Stanwyck as an Aimee Semple McPherson type evangelist bilking the public for all it's worth under the tutelage of Sam Hardy.Barbara's got good reason to be cynical, her father who was a devout minister died poor and uncared for by his Pharisee like congregation. With Hardy's encouragement she starts to see religion as a way to make some real dough. Doesn't that sound familiar for today.She's going along in her cynical way until she meets David Manners, former veteran of the Great War who left his eyesight behind in it. Manners is the main weakness in The Miracle Woman, he's obviously a man of some culture and learning and I could not accept that this would be the kind of woman he would fall for.The similarities between The Miracle Woman and Elmer Gantry are too obvious to ignore. Richard Brooks's classic is so much better done covering the same ground. As for Stanwyck she gives a great performance in a film that never quite gets its message across.

blanche-2 Barbara Stanwyck is "The Miracle Woman" in this 1931 film directed by Frank Capra and also starring David Manners.Stanwyck plays Florence Fallon, the daughter of a religious leader who becomes angry and bitter toward her father's congregation when he is ousted and later dies. She is approached by a promoter who launches her on a preaching career with an audience loaded with shills, while he collects money for an alleged tabernacle and makes payoffs.Meanwhile, a blind composer (David Manners) is saved from suicide by one of Sister Fallon's radio broadcasts and becomes devoted to her. The two fall in love, and Florence, who has never been happy being a fraud from the beginning, becomes less and less enchanted with the business she's in.The character of Florence Fallon was inspired, as was Sharon Falconer in Elmer Gantry, by the real-life miracle woman, Aimee Semple McPherson, a popular evangelist. She founded the Foursquare Church, still in existence today, and had hundreds and hundreds of healings credited to her. Barbara Stanwyck, about 24 years old here, gives a passionate performance as a conflicted woman, and handsome David Manners does a nice job as her blind beau.Very absorbing early Capra, quite different from what he would do in the future. In fact, if you're not a Capra fan, you might like this film of his best of all.

marcslope Clearheaded, consistently entertaining indictment of shear-the-sheep religion, from an unsuccessful Broadway play that starred Alice Brady, this quick-moving melodrama benefits from a terse Robert Riskin screenplay where every line counts, atmospheric Joseph Walker photography, and some very fine acting. Capra, as usual, makes his points quickly, finds humor where there's humor to be found (note the drunken party greeter repeatedly falling out of his chair), and gives even the minor characters distinctive personalities. Best of all is a blazing Barbara Stanwyck, who has a stunning first scene and doesn't let up from there, and the camera loves her. As the blind vet who adores her, David Manners plays blind very well, is un-self-consciously handsome, and minimizes the annoyingly angelic aspects of his character. It's over in an hour and a half, meaning it makes the same points as "Elmer Gantry" in about half the time, right down to the similar finale.