The Miracle Woman (1931) - film review

When her father, a church minister, dies from a broken heart after having been dismissed by his parish, Florence Fallon turns on his congregation, bitterly charging them with ingratitude and hypocrisy.  Impressed by her impassioned tirade, promoter and con man Bob Hornsby persuades Florence to become an evangelical preacher.  Together, they will stage fake healings across the United States and extort money from the faithful gullible.  The scam proves to be a great success and soon the money is rolling in.  Unable to find work on account of his blindness, former pilot John Carson is about to commit suicide when he hears one of Florence’s sermons on the radio.  Moved by what he has heard, John attends Florence’s next public meeting and volunteers to step into a lion’s den with her.  Believing in Florence’s goodness, John falls in love with her and she, moved by his faith in her, begins to love him and see the error of her ways.  Unfortunately, Hornsby has other ideas and tells Florence that she is too deeply embroiled in his fraud to just walk away from it...

The Miracle Woman is the film where Frank Capra, with around twenty films already under belt, found his voice and is the first of his noteworthy morality films.  This was his second collaboration with Barbara Stanwyck, an actress who quickly rose to fame under Capra’s tutelage, whilst providing the director with the perfect muse for his early 1930s films, on account of her ability to play tough, often cynical women sympathetically and convincingly.

Inspired by the scandalous well-known story of a real-life evangelist Aimée Semple McPherson, The Miracle Woman combines an important social issue – the exploitation of the Christian faithful by unscrupulous conmen – with a poignant love story.  David Manners gives the performance of his career as the blind man whose faith in an embittered young woman redeems her and gives them both the prospect of a happier life.

The scene where Manners attempts to tell Stanwyck he loves her through his ventriloquist’s doll is one of such devastating poignancy that it is almost unbearable to watch. What could so easily have degenerated into low grade schmaltz is, thanks to Capra’s restrained direction and the engaging, understated performance of his lead players, a moving tale of redemption through love, a theme that Capra would revisit many times in his subsequent career.

© James Travers 2009

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