Oscars Retrospective: Going My Way (17th Academy Awards Review)

 

That's An Irish Lullaby~Bing Crosby - Going My Way

There are movie stars and then there are multimedia movie stars. These are stars who do it all. They sing, they’re in movies, they’re on TV, they sell out their likeness to every piece of merchandise you can imagine. And today, we’re going to be looking at the pioneer of multimedia stardom. Before Miley Cyrus, before Michael Jackson, before Elvis Presley, before Frank Sinatra, there was Bing Crosby. To put in perspective how big this guy was in his day, Crosby was once voted the “most admired man alive” by Americans in 1948, ahead of Jackie Robinson, the President of the United States and the Pope.

Crosby is a Hollywood icon in the same league as Clark Gable, being particularly well known for his singing chops. Before him, singers were known for an almost belting quality, as their voices were meant to fill the room. Crosby was one of the first to cater his singing towards the microphone and audio recording. (In case you’re not understanding what I’m saying, listen to a song by Al Jolson and then listen to one by Frank Sinatra. Bing Crosby is basically the bridge between these two eras of pop music.) His smooth baritone seduced the ears of millions of audiences and his radio show became one of the most listened-to in America.

Needless to say, Crosby wormed his way into Hollywood and quickly became one of the biggest stars of the 40s and 50s. By the time Going My Way came out, he’d made a few rounds as a comedic star, particularly with his Road to movies wherein he co-starred with fellow radio star-turned-movie actor Bob Hope (who, fun fact, holds the distinction as having hosted the Academy Awards more times than anyone else in history, hosting a whopping 19 ceremonies). These two were a riot together in these films and if you like old-school comedies, I can highly recommend them (particularly Road to Zanzibar (1941), Road to Morocco (1943) and Road to Utopia (1946)). Crosby also starred in Holiday Inn (1942), where he sang probably his biggest hit, and the song he’s most famous for today, White Christmas. So, with all this combined, it was only a matter of time before he decided to see if he could try out his more dramatic acting chops.

To best exemplify what this would’ve seemed like to audiences and critics back then, imagine if Taylor Swift made the jump to film with a lot of comedy-adventure films and then made one that was more of a comedy-drama, which ended up being a frontrunner at the Oscars. So, with this in mind, is Going My Way really just an easy ego trip for Bing Crosby or is the movie actually one of the better films that year? The answer: eh.

Father Fitzgibbon (Barry Fitzgerald), is the lead priest of a parish in New York City that has fallen on hard times. His credit is in danger of being defaulted by a local creditor named Ted Haines (Gene Lockhart) who will foreclose the parish. As he struggles to make ends meet, Father Fitzgibbon is greeted by a transfer of a new assistant, Father Chuck O’Malley (Bing Crosby) who has been sent to help set the church’s affairs in order. However, O’Malley’s new style of priesthood constantly runs into loggerheads with Father Fitzgibbon’s more old-school, conservative style of worship. Will his fun-having, loose-lips ways manage to save the church in time and convince Father Fitzgibbon to see his new way of doing things?

Of course they will.

So, yes, this is another movie that seems to have jump started an entire formula of family films that is still being recycled today. In this case it’s the “evil corporate [blank] is threatening to close down [beloved community place] and it’s up to a wily rascal to melt the heart of cranky old-school [blank] to save [beloved community place]” trope. (Examples: The Absent-Minded Professor (1961), The Blues Brothers (1980), Rad (1986), Flubber (1997), Babe: Pig in the City (1998)) Unlike in later films where it’s something like a college or youth center, here it’s a parish of the Catholic Church. This in turn offers both what is the most interesting aspect of Going My Way as well as what makes it age very poorly: Going My Way is a very interesting time capsule of religion in 1940s America.

I don’t think I need to tell you that we live in a much more secular world than 1944. The big dramatic question is whether or not the hero will be able to save a church, something that they don’t even try to explain too much because audiences would have instantly understood why that’s important. Even more interesting, though, is Father O’Malley’s maverick way of getting in touch with his congregation are things that honestly don’t seem all that unusual for a priest to do today. For example, he likes to play golf, he likes to sing, he has an old girlfriend (Rise Stevens) from before he took the cloth that he keeps in touch with and when there’s a local gang of boys causing trouble, O’Malley decides to keep them busy and off the street by having them sing in a church choir… in English, no less.

Keep in mind that this movie came out 15 years before Pope St. John XXIII’s Second Vatican Council, which updated many aspects of the Catholic Church that may be taken for granted nowadays. (For example, mass used to normally be spoken in Latin instead of the local language, the pastor would face away from the audience towards the cross and there wasn’t much, if any, interfaith outreach with other religions and denominations.) The idea of a wise-cracking man of the cloth using songs in English to connect with others might have seemed scandalous back in the day. Watching it so many years later, though, it’s pretty hard to get behind the culture clash when the older priest is mortified at Father O’Malley playing golf to unwind.

Even accounting for different tastes over the course of the decades, Going My Way is another film that I think is aggressively mediocre. Father O’Malley is a pretty dull character all things considered. If you ever watched one of Crosby’s Road films with Bob Hope, you’ll know that Crosby could be very, very funny when he wanted to be. His kind of droll, dry delivery perfectly offset Hope’s more manic personality. Especially in these films where Crosby was the self-appointed leader of the duo who frequently screws over his friend for a quick buck and would manipulate Hope’s character into accepting it. It’s a great bit and he managed to pull off the balance between being both charming and mean that makes him hysterical.

A small sample of Crosby being funny in a much better movie.

In Going My Way, Crosby isn’t allowed to be mean since they’d never get away with that. Which isn’t necessarily bad if the role allowed Crosby to stretch his acting chops but it doesn’t do that either. The character of Father O’Malley is basically just the same character that Bing Crosby has always played, just a nicer version. Because he’s supposed to be the sage character that makes other people’s lives better, he’s not allowed to have many inner conflicts so there really isn’t anything interesting about him besides the fact that he’s played by Bing Crosby. And, in case you’re wondering, no, I do not think he deserved the Oscar for Best Leading Actor either.

This kind of half-in-the-bag-ness stretches to most of the rest of the film as well. Going My Way lazies between all of its sub-plots without putting too much focus on any of them. The general idea is that all the characters exist in the orbit of the church and the film is trying to show that you can be a helpful man of God even if you aren’t necessarily the super stodgy, old-school priest and how everyone’s lives are improved by this man. This could be excellent if the film was ready to show the absolute worst of humanity and difficult decisions a truly devout man might have to make but it doesn’t.

The kids who become part of the choir are rotten kids but they can’t be that rotten. The old girlfriend that he used to love he has a heavy conversation with but it can’t be that heavy. The villains are bad people but they can’t be that bad because they still have to be redeemed. The movie is trying to be a musical but there’s not that many musical numbers and they’re not even that fun. It is also trying to be a screwball comedy but it’s very dry and Crosby isn’t all that funny here.

And in case you’re thinking that they couldn’t have gone for darker tones or characters without offending the censors, I still think this could’ve been tastefully done. The whole priest and rotten kids plot was done much better with much more rotten kids in Angels with Dirty Faces (1938). There were plenty of villains in the 30s and early 40s who were pretty nasty or fun characters. And the idea of a priest being torn between the cloth and an old love would be a phenomenal idea for an old-school romance (if you want to see this concept handled in a much better movie, watch Alfred Hitchcock’s I Confess (1953)).

The only character who seems to really be gotten down well is Father Fitzgibbon (a role that won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor). Barry Fitzgerald does a good job at playing this more old-school priest who has renounced his own personal problems in favor of pursuing the cloth. He does slowly open up more as he comes to accept Father O’Malley’s new ways but he ultimately gets lost in the fold of the myriad of sub-plots even though I get the sense that this is supposed to be the heart of the movie. Although, once again, I feel like the script doesn’t make this guy as mean or conservative as he could’ve been. This set-up was, once again, handled much better in another film, in this case, The Song of Bernadette (1943).

Due to some weird error, Barry Fitzgerald was nominated for both Best Leading Actor and Best Supporting Actor for the same role.

Going My Way was directed by Leo McCarey, the same man who directed Duck Soup (1933) and Make Way for Tomorrow (1938). And coming off of those movies, this is a massive disappointment. Not only is Duck Soup still a very funny movie that really pushed the envelope of what you could get away with back in its day but both of those films were clever social satires that had a lot to say about American society without hitting you over the head with it. Duck Soup was a satire of the selfish, war-loving egos that eventually led to World War I. Make Way for Tomorrow was a slow, methodical think piece about an elderly couple coming to the end of their lives and how they’ve regressed to having to be cared for by their children. Coming off of those movies (which were both snubs for Oscars), it’s really bizarre watching Going My Way whose commentary is middling at best.

Also, the movie drags. Like crazy. It’s over 2 hours long and there is no reason it couldn’t have easily been trimmed to around 80 minutes. There is also no reason why Going My Way’s dry plot couldn’t have been wittier, more interesting or involved Father O’Malley actually making difficult decisions. This is another winner that I’m honestly struggling to understand why on Earth it won, especially compared to some of the movies we’ll be discussing in the next blog. My guess? Judging by the fact that it was also the highest-grossing movie of the year and its tone is just the right level of sappy, I think it just went back to the Bing Crosby zeitgeist. The dude was so big that his big dramatic breakout necessitated accolades, all of the accolades.

So, no, this is not the best movie of 1944 looking back at it. But, once again, we try to ascertain these awards by how they were back when they came out, not looking at them today. So, with this in mind, could Going My Way have been called the movie of the year back then?

In case you missed it:

1st Academy Awards (1927/28): Wings/Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans: Part 1, Part 2

2nd Academy Awards (1928/29): The Broadway Melody: Part 1, Part 2

3rd Academy Awards (1929/30): All Quiet on the Western Front: Part 1, Part 2

4th Academy Awards (1930/31): Cimarron: Part 1, Part 2

5th Academy Awards (1931/32): Grand Hotel: Part 1, Part 2

6th Academy Awards (1932/33): Cavalcade: Part 1, Part 2

7th Academy Awards (1934): It Happened One Night: Part 1, Part 2

8th Academy Awards (1935): Mutiny on the Bounty: Part 1, Part 2

9th Academy Awards (1936): The Great Ziegfeld: Part 1, Part 2

10th Academy Awards (1937): The Life of Emile Zola: Part 1, Part 2

11th Academy Awards (1938): You Can't Take It With You: Part 1, Part 2

12th Academy Awards (1939): Gone With the Wind: Part 1, Part 2

13th Academy Awards (1940): Rebecca: Part 1, Part 2

14th Academy Awards (1941): How Green Was My Valley: Part 1, Part 2

15th Academy Awards (1942): Mrs. Miniver: Part 1, Part 2

16th Academy Awards (1943): Casablanca: Part 1, Part 2