Better than Going My Way?
I didn't like Going My Way so much. I liked The Bells of St. Mary's a lot more.
Can someone lend a hand and tell me what was good about Going My Way? And which picture did they like more?
They were both very good, but I prefer Going My Way. It would be easy to say that it's because it was the one I saw first, but it's more than that. I'm not going to claim Barry Fitzgerald was a better actor than Ingrid Bergman, but Fitzgerald's character Father Fitzgibbon in Going My Way made the difference. The rather severe appearing Eily Malyon, playing Mrs. Carmody, and the sadly uncredited Adeline De Walt Reynolds, playing the dear sweet Mrs. Molly Fitzgibbon, were also superb.
Fitzgerald was one of the finest character actors in the history of cinema. He is perhaps best known for his masterpiece performance in The Quiet Man. It's pretty amazing to realize that he was only 55 when he made Going My Way.
Mrs. Reynolds was actually born during the Civil War. She suffered the loss of her husband in 1905, but continued to live until just a month short of her 99th birthday, in 1961. It's hard to believe that the frail figure you see in Going My Way would appear in 26 movies and TV productions after that, right up until a year before her death. What a wonderful lady!