One day in 1858, Bernadette sees a vision of the Virgin Mary near the town dump. Although she is the only person who can see the vision, her earnest daily pilgrimage to the site inspires many followers.
This leads to consternation and embarrassment in the local officials; nonbelievers who feel the town is now the laughingstock of all the intellectuals of France. These include the capitalistic mayor (Aubrey Mather) and the condescending imperial prosecutor (Vincent Price). Their schemes are not enough to overcome Bernadette's faith. Neither is the skepticism of local clergyman Peyramale (Charles Bickford) and a hostile nun (Gladys Cooper).
Peyramale comes to believe in Bernadette after a spring with healing waters emerges at the site where Bernadette claimed to converse with the Virgin Mary. Bernadette's vision was eventually confirmed by the Catholic church, and she was posthumously canonized by Pope Pius XI in 1933.
How others will see it. The Song of Bernadette was the biggest-grossing 20th Century Fox film of 1943. The movie was nominated for a dozen Oscars, winning four, including Best Actress and Best Black and White Cinematography. It did even better at the Golden Globes, where it won Best Picture and Best Director in addition to Best Actress.
Today at imdb.com, the movie has a high (yet unspectacular) user rating of 7.6 out of 10. The 7.4K user votes is lofty for an eighty-year-old black and white movie, though it must be noted that Casablanca (1942) has a user rating of 8.5 and nearly 600K user votes.
The user reviews for The Song of Bernadette are predominantly positive. There are indeed cynics and skeptics out there, but they are overwhelmed by the pro-Catholic wave of admiration that "makes you want to believe" that Bernadette really did converse with a vision of the Virgin Mary.
How I felt about it. In 1939, an actress named Phyllis Isley arrived in Hollywood. She promptly found work in two forgotten films in supporting roles. She then married Robert Walker, an actor today best known as the disturbed murderer in Strangers on a Train. Isley had children, and stopped making films.
But she had caught the eye of Gone With the Wind producer David O. Selznick. By 1943, she had changed her name to Jennifer Jones, was getting divorced, and had resumed her acting career in a big way, as the lead in The Song of Bernadette, which led to a Best Actress Oscar.
With Selznick as her Svengali, Jones had a long and successful Hollywood career, often paired with Joseph Cotten as her romantic interest. She married Selznick in 1949.
Jennifer Jones had an ethereal, otherworldly quality about her. That, and her beauty, made her well cast in roles requiring a character who was spiritual, mysterious, or passionately in love.
What The Song of Bernadette really has going for it isn't the fine cast or the solid direction, it's the script, credited to George Seaton. In his career, Seaton accumulated four Best Screenplay Oscar nominations, winning for the Christmas classic Miracle on 34th Street (1948).
Upon subsequent viewings, Jones' one-note performance strains credulity. Even when she is afflicted with cancer while working as a servant at the prison-like convent, she is as bland and pious as ever. The other complaint I have is that government officials are too anxious to end the pilgrimages, when they would soon run their course if simply ignored.
But, these are petty complaints. The Song of Bernadette is one of those classic Hollywood films in which everything comes together. The film deserves far better than its relative obscurity in this more cynical era.