O Céu Está em Toda Parte

I love this movie, one of my all time favorites. Ann Blythe as Sally O'Moyne is sweet and trouble-free. She believes that praying to Saint Anne will solve all her and her friends troubles. The sub-plot of the dastardly bad man to get her father's property is funny and clever. Her brothers are what kind of brothers any girl would love to have. Also, look for "Aunt Bee" as her mother, a strong Irish woman who won't leave her house that she brought her family up in. They don't make them like this anymore, that's for sure.

Despite the title, St. Anne doesn't figure into much of the film. At the start, Sally (Ann Blythe) is a young girl and finds that when she prays to St. Anne, her prayers seem to get answered. In other words, the saint is a bit like Santa. But Sally doesn't take full advantage of this and only contacts her at the beginning and near the end...which makes me wonder why they picked the title to this movie!

In fact, as the film progresses it goes from a story centering on Sally and much more on her family. So, after Sally manages to make a great impression at the big dance, the rest of the film is about her family's feud with an alderman...and the big boxing match that MIGHT save the family.

If it sounds like there really isn't a lot of plot to the film, you're right...as it's much more a slice of life film...albeit a pleasant slice of life. The story is decent, the acting and supporting actors nice...and it's worth seeing but hardly a must-see picture.

This film centered on a young lady who makes prayers to help her family and friends when they encounter difficulties in life. It made me think of other movies like the "Song of Bernadette" and "Francis of Assisi" and has a very strong Catholic faith influence in the film. Ann Blyth is very charming as first, the Catholic school student and then later as a young woman who buys a statue of Saint Anne (which is the name of the street that I live on, by the way) and makes many prayers for the saint's intercession whenever problems come up in her life. Frances Bavier (Aunt Bea from the Andy Griffith show) and Edmund Gwenn (from Miracle on 34th Street) play relatives of her. A local priest of mine used to say that my sister resembled Ann Blyth and the both of them have the same first and middle names. A nice good family film that came from an era when life was a bit more simpler.

Although the scenes showing the 26 year old Ann Blyth as a Catholic school girl were a bit awkward, on the whole Sally And Saint Anne is a tender and well done family picture about growing up Catholic during the Truman- Eisenhower era. I only wish that Blyth had been given a song or two for the film.

Blyth plays Sally O'Moyne youngest and only girl in the O'Moyne family a rather eccentric clan where the parents seem to indulge children. Parents are Otto Hulett and Frances Bavier and Ann's three older brothers are Hugh O'Brian, Jack Kelly, and Lamont Johnson. These kids are indulged like the inhabitants of Lionel Barrymore's place in You Can't Take I With You. Still they're a lovable crew. They have an enemy in their lives like the Vanderhoffs in the person of John McIntire who wants to acquire a piece of land that grandfather Edmund Gwenn owns and isn't above using the power of being an Alderman to do it.

One day in Catholic school in a bit of a rush Blyth says a quick prayer to the statue of St. Anne and gets her prayer answered in one of those mysterious ways God works. After that St. Anne becomes a personal spiritual lifeline she goes to and somehow things work out. That last thing which involves brother O'Brian is a pip.

Blyth is one of the group of actresses who are well known Catholic lay people and they also include Loretta Young, Rosalind Russell, and Irene Dunne. I'm sure this was a project from which she derived great satisfaction.

And while the view of the Roman Catholic Church has changed considerably since 1952, Sally And Saint Anne is still a nice family picture especially for Catholics.

I was lucky (smart?) enough to have taped this movie back in my 'beta' days, made a copy to VHS later but always kept the original which I later used to move it to DVD, yes I still have a working Beta Machine! ..thank goodness because I have not seen it on TV since and people think I make up the movie when I talk about it every Christmas.

I would snap it up so fast if they would only put it out in DVD format.

I have a slew of movies I watch in December and this one and "Say One For Me" (another hard to find movie) are 2 that I save for Christmas Eve.

Such a sweet movie and so wonderfully 'dated' ..."prunes..."

dc