Where Angels Go Trouble Follows!

This is another of those cases when I have seen the sequel before I saw the original, and from what I have seen this is another in those rare cases in which the sequel is better than the original. This film worked for me on two levels. On one level it was a pretty decent story about Marvel Ann (who was more of a peripheral character in the original) and how she tries to cope with her feelings about being a sort of ugly duckling. This is especially true in her scenes with her more attractive best friend Rosabelle (played by a very young Susan Saint James in her pre-"MacMillan and Wife" days). Also, the other main story that this film covers is the relationship between Reverend Mother (again played by Rosalind Russell) and Sister George (played by Stella Stevens). The relationship between those two is a reflection of what was going on in the Catholic church during the mid to late 1960's as this film came out a few years after Vatican II. Reverend Mother represents the old church and Sister George represents the younger face of Catholicism that is trying to change with the times. This is a wonderful film that really works as both a comedy and a drama.

In the first film of this series The Trouble With Angels the main focus of the film was on the students in particular Hayley Mills and the trouble she got into, always vexing Mother Superior Rosalind Russell. In Where Angels Go Trouble Follows the accent is on the nuns and in particular the generational dispute between Rosalind Russell and new nun on the faculty, Stella Stevens.

It's the same kind of fun that the previous film was. The girls at the Catholic Academy are all revved up by Stella Stevens to attend an interfaith youth rally cross country in California. She together with Bishop Arthur Godfrey persuade Rosalind Russell to take 3000 mile cross country bus trip with a picked group of the girls. One of them, Barbara Hunter gets to go via her dad William Lundigan donating the bus for the trip.

In fact Hunter and Susan Saint James are the troublesome pair of girls who take Hayley Mills's place in vexing Russell. Funniest scene is when after being ordered to wash the bus bumper to bumper by Russell, the two of them take the bus into a car wash they break into and try to use. Of course the two geniuses forget to close the bus windows before putting it through the wash.

Russell got to work with two of her former fellow contract players at MGM in this film. Robert Taylor plays the owner of a boys summer camp ranch and Van Johnson is a priest and head of a Catholic Boys School. Johnson and she never worked together at MGM and she and Taylor whom she said started the exact same day for Louis B. Mayer were both supporting players in a film West Point Of The Air and did not work together again until Where Angels Go Trouble Follows.

Dolores Sutton, Mary Wickes, and Binnie Barnes were all members of the convent in the previous film and repeat their roles here. Milton Berle is on hand as a movie director of a western on to whose set the bus stumbles on during an 'Indian' attack. With that eyepatch for affect and Berle makes you know it's for affect, it either suggests a spoof of John Ford or Raoul Walsh.

I liked the film because without condescension it shows the generational conflict between the two protagonists, Russell and Stevens. Neither is made to be a fool, both had very good points on their side.

Though it's set in the culture of the Sixties, the humor and wisdom in Where Angels Go Trouble Follows is timeless and will still be funny generations from now.

Why am I reviewing this? It's not typical of what I normally review , although that doesn't mean anything in particular because I don't review 99 percent of the movies that I see. I had never heard of this movie before but I was bored the other day and it happened to show up on cable on a channel with no commercials - and I'll watch just about anything that is sans commercials. Plus I'm a sucker for a road trip flick and I will take any chance that I can get to take a sixties road trip, even if it is with a bunch of nuns on a bus instead of freaks on motorcycles.

First of all, while fairly well made, this is not a great movie. It's mainly the story and plot, or rather the lack of them, that causes the problems here. Technically it looks fine and the shot on ___location photography is very nice. But the story is so incredibly thin and silly and riddled with the most over-the-top clichés and contrived plot devices that it becomes distracting. The entire film is nothing more than a series of connected scenes of the type that junior high drama students might come up with. The only progression in the film is the physical one of the bus travelling forward in time and space, because otherwise the scenes could be mixed and shuffled like cards and placed in any order and the end result would be about the same. This film has got to be one of the very last examples of well made but quickly written hack jobs written by old school Hollywood hack writers - except for a few of the "modern woman" touches gleaned from the swinging sixties optimism pre-Altamont this film could easily have been made in 1958 instead of 1968.

Just a few examples of the above can be illustrated by the church's school bus. The basic "plot" of this film is that a group of girls from a Catholic school and their Mother Nuns take a road trip to California for a rally. That's pretty much it. They have an old broken down school bus, which in one of a seemingly endless line of contrivances (you'll have to watch to see what this particular contrivance is) gets replaced by a brand new one for the trip. A nice shiny yellow brand new bus with the school's name on it. Early on in the trip, the driving nun stalls the bus on some railroad tracks with a train coming (of course). The brand new bus won't start. They start to evacuate the bus and the door won't open. It's one of those bus doors with the handle that the driver pulls - when have you ever seen one get stuck, especially on a brand new bus? So they go to evacuate out of the back emergency door. That one is stuck too. What the heck is happening with this bus all of the sudden? A brand new, perfectly functioning bus turns into s teenage virgin and nun deathtrap all of the sudden. So the girls start clambering out of the windows - I was only surprised that all of the windows weren't stuck too. Well, of course they all got out and the nun was able to restart the bus just in the nick of time. And the scene just ends with a circle fadeout and that's that. No mention of how they were all able to reboard the bus with the stuck doors and all.

Further on down the line the bus suffers a blowout on on of the brand new tires, runs out of gas (not the bus's fault there, but leads to a great scene with ridiculous biker "toughs" roughing up nuns), gets filled with water and suds in a truck wash, and breaks an axle while evading a charge of Indians on the warpath (yes, you read that right). I think that they would have been better off with the old bus!

I'm sorry though, I must apologize. It's easy to find fault with the writing here, as it is atrocious. But at the end of the day I enjoyed this film. It's a period piece to be sure - in the extreme. Movies like this will NEVER be made again. It echoes a sentiment that was naive even in 1968. It was past its time before it was even made. But it is entertaining, and even if you do pick it apart by the clichés and contrivances, well that can add to the fun. The cinematography is pleasing and the scenery of late 1960's midwest is pleasing too. You are not going to watch this film and then get depressed, and there is something to be said for that.

So go ahead and watch this movie, and take a road trip yourself back to a more innocent age. Relax and enjoy it - there is also much to be said for taking a detour to a couple of hours away from the stressful mood of the planet Earth in the year 2006. And as hackneyed as they can be, I'd still prefer one movie like this to one hundred of the market analyzed, test audienced, product placed and merchandise marketed complete and total cr@p ones that ooze from Hollywood's rear end these days.

I prefer this movie to it's predecessor, because it is campy, nostalgic and has favorite actors like Rosalind Russell, Stella Stevens and Susan Saint James. I also went to parochial school in the seventies but enjoy the sixties references. Yes, this movie is a sequel, but evaluate it on it's own merits. I love the entire charming soundtrack by Lalo Schifrin and the title song lyrics and vocals by Boyce & Hart but am very disappointed that it is not available. I actually first saw it as a young adult in my church's school auditorium and found it highly amusing. It doesn't shock, create belly-laughs or extended philosophical pondering and if you are looking for those things, then choose another movie. One reviewer actually said that this plays like a "low-drawer Disney movie", to which I say absolutely not. The current Disney television shows and movies for kids often pander with extremely corny overacting, silly overused slang and idiotic dialogue. This movie does not take itself too seriously. It has dramatic moments but is NOT Shakespeare, SO MELLOW-OUT, YOU SQUARES! IT IS, HOWEVER, A LOT OF INNOCENT FUN.

Old fashion Mother Superior (Rosalind Russell) is struggling to change with the times. Sister George (Stella Stevens) is the young rebellious nun. They take the girls of St. Francis Academy on a cross-country bus trip.

This is a sequel to the 1966 movie with Rosalind Russell returning. Hayley Mills didn't return. This one is missing her star power. Stella Stevens is perfectly fine, but not the same thing. Among the girls, I do recognize Susan Saint James despite her very short hair do. She is supposed to be the new Hayley Mills although that's asking a lot. With this one, they are trying to tap into the counter-culture and the changing times. The comedy is rather tame with some boy-crazy teen drama. The biker gang section is trying to do some interesting darkness. Milton Berle makes a short appearance as a John Ford type character. There are some interesting stops along the way, but it's not adding up to anything bigger.