The Trouble with Angels (film)

The Trouble with Angels
File:Trouble with angels.jpg
Directed by	Ida Lupino
Written by	Jane Trahey (novel) Blanche Hanalis
Starring	Rosalind Russell Hayley Mills
Edited by	Robert C. Jones
Music by	Jerry Goldsmith
Distributed by	Columbia Pictures
Release date	1966
Running time	112 min.
Country	U.S.A.
Language	English

The Trouble with Angels is a 1966 comedy film about the adventures of two girls in an all girls school run by nuns. The movie was directed by Ida Lupino and stars Rosalind Russell and Hayley Mills. The featured players include Marge Redmond (who appeared as a nun in the television series The Flying Nun) as Sister Liguori, Mary Wickes (who also played a nun in Sister Act and its sequel Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit) as Sister Mary Lazarus, and Portia Nelson as Sister Elizabeth (who also played a nun in The Sound of Music).

Synopsis

The movie is set in a fictional all-girls Catholic boarding school operated by an order of nuns. Russell plays the Mother Superior, who spends the movie at odds with Mary Clancy (Mills), a rebellious teenager, and her misery-loves-company friend Rachel Devery (June Harding). The episodic storyline follows the young women through their high-school years.

The film was based on the memoir Life with Mother Superior by Jane Trahey, in which Trahey told the story of her high-school years at a Catholic school near Chicago in the 1930s. While in the novel the school was portrayed as a boarding school outside the city, Trahey actually attended what is now Providence-St. Mel's High School, which was only a day school. Many of the incidents mentioned in the book were actually based on Trahey's experiences at Mundelein College in Chicago. The character of Mary Clancy was based on Jane's actual friend, Mary, who later became Sister John Eudes a Sinsinawa Dominican.

Impact

The film marked a departure for Mills, who was attempting to emerge from her juvenile leads in Walt Disney-produced teen comedies as a comedic actress.

The film enjoyed good reviews and enough success to warrant a sequel (Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows). However, Mills opted not to reprise her role as the progressive protagonist and was replaced by Stella Stevens, who played Sister George, foil to Rosalind Russell’s Mother Superior.

Uncharacteristically, Russell criticized Mills' professionalism in her memoirs. Russell credited her Catholic-school education as inspiration for her role as Mother Superior.

It is rumored that Producer William Frye originally offered the role of Mother Superior to his friend Greta Garbo for one million dollars, but she declined and Rosalind Russell was cast, at a significantly lower salary.

Cameo

Burlesque performer Gypsy Rose Lee appears in a small role. Previously, Rosalind Russell played Lee's mother in the 1962 film Gypsy.

Memorable dialogue

• Passenger on train: Really! A child your age, smoking!
  Mary: I'm not a child, Madam. I'm a midget with bad habits!

• (Upon seeing the school for the first time) Mary: It's positively medieval!
  Rachel: All that's missing is the dragon.

• "I've got the most scathingly brilliant idea!". Variations on Mary's phrase are used seven times in the film.

• "How 'bout that!". Rachel's favorite phrase is used several times in the film.

• "Those two! GET THEM!!"

• "How's the water, Sister?"

• Rachel (after sliding down a fire escape): That was fun!
  Mary: Let's do it again some day!
  Mother Superior (waiting for them at the bottom): Where's the fire?

• Rachel: I keep telling you, you don't have to whisper. Sister Puddy could sleep through a blast-off. Watch.
  (bangs on pans twice)
  Mary: It's incredible
  Rachel: Hmmm. I keep testing her. It passes the time.

• Rachel: She said I was the devil's agent
  Mary: She meant you were my stooge!

• Mother Superior: As for the social graces, I am convinced that your school encourages barbarism, and concerns itself only with free thinking, free wheeling and finger painting
  Mr Peachtree: The finest educational minds in the country happen to be on our side
  Mother Superior: God is on ours!

• Mother Superior: Well, it's a good thing you didn't make book on it, otherwise you might have been taken to the laundry
  Sister Liguori: To the cleaners, Mother!

• Rachel (referring to Sister Liguori, who usually conducts a mathematics exam as though it were a horse race): Isn't she too much?
  Mary: She should've been a bookie!

• Rachel: Sister Clarissa won't let us drown
  Mary: I wouldn't count on it!

External links

• Trouble with Angels at IMDb