The Bells of St. Mary's

The Bells of St. Mary's is a 1945 film starring Bing Crosby, Ingrid Bergman, Henry Travers and Una O'Connor. The music is by Bobby Dolan. Bing Crosby is a priest sent to a convent school with an eye towards closing it. Ingrid Bergman, on the other hand, has her nuns praying for a miracle that'll give them the perfect new building that has just gone up next door.

This is one of my favorite Christmas movies. I'm not sure why, because I don't tend to like sentimental movies, and this is definitely sentimental.

trailer:



Variety calls it "warmly sentimental". TCM has an overview. Rotten Tomatoes gives it a score of 94%. Time praises Bergman:

As Sister Benedict, Ingrid Bergman manages to combine beauty, great good humor and saintly dignity even while swinging a baseball bat. Taking her role seriously, Actress Bergman played it without make-up (with no damage to her good looks), visited parochial schools to see how nuns actually behave, wore ballet slippers under her robes to perfect a gliding step.