Podcasts

Woman Around Town’s Editor Charlene Giannetti and writers for the website talk with the women and men making news in New York, Washington, D.C., and other cities around the world. Thanks to Ian Herman for his wonderful piano introduction.

Sister Act

Five Films About Nuns

06/21/2017

The Indie release, The Little Hours, coming out on June 30, takes place in a medieval convent where a young, runaway, servant (Dave Franco) takes refuge. The early buzz on the film has been good and it will be joining a cinematic tradition of nuns and convent life on screen.

The Bells of Saint Mary’s (1945) Directed by Leo Carey (The Awful Truth, An Affair to Remember), starring screen legends Bing Crosby and Ingrid Bergman as respectively a priest and nun who despite a good-hearted rivalry work together to save an inner city school.  It was a massive commercial success grossing over $8 million on its initial run making it the highest grossing movie of 1945 and the most profitable film in the history of RKO. It also won the Academy Award for Best Sound Recording and was nominated for Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Director.

Agnes of God (1985)  Norman Jewison (In the Heat of the Night, Fiddler on the Roof, and Moonstruck) directed this mystery drama based on the stage play of the same name. Young novice Sister Agnes (Meg Tilly) is found directly after giving birth with a dead infant she insists was the result of a virgin conception. Psychiatrist Martha Livingston (Jane Fonda) is assigned to assess Agnes’s state of mind and she quickly comes to clash with Mother Superior Miriam (Anne Bancroft). Tilly won a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress and was also nominated for an Academy Award in the category as well.

Sister Act (1992) Emile Ardolino (Dirty Dancing) directed this American musical comedy. Whoopi Goldberg stars as Deloris a Reno lounge singer who sees her married mobster lover shoot a guy. The local police decide the safest place for her is to hide her in a convent in San Francisco under the alias of Sister Mary Clarence. ‘Sister Mary’ soon becomes choir director and begins turning things upside down in the parish as her ex-flame seeks high and low to find her. It was a huge box office smash grossing over $200 million worldwide on a $30 million budget and generally well received by critics.

Dead Man Walking (1995) Tim Robbins directed and adapted the screenplay for this movie from the non-fiction book of the same name by Sister Helen Prejean who has worked as a spiritual counselor to death row prisoners. Susan Sarandon stars as Sister Helen in a role that won her an Oscar and Sean Penn gives an astonishing performance as unrepentant killer Matthew Poncelot. The movie holds a current fresh rating of 95% from Rotten Tomatoes and was nominated for four Academy Awards including Best Actress, Best Actor, Best Director, and Best Song.

The Madgalene Sisters (2002) Peter Mullan wrote and directed this heart-breaking and infuriating Irish-British drama about three teenage girls sent to the Magdalene Asylums (otherwise known as Magdalene laundries) for ‘fallen women.’ The cast includes Anne-Marie Duff (The Virgin Queen, Suffragette) as young heroine Margaret and five time Olivier Award nominee Geraldine McEwan as the evil Sister Bridget. The characters themselves are composites, but their stories horrifically are quite real. It was one of the biggest commercial successes in Ireland that year, won the Golden Lion at Venice, and holds a 90% fresh rating on the Tomatometer.

R.I.P. Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds

12/29/2016

It certainly feels like 2016 has been a never ending parade of losses from Alan Rickman, David Bowie, George Michael, Florence Henderson and so many more. Carrie Fisher and her mother, Debbie Reynolds, now join that list as well. We were all reeling from Carrie’s death at age 60 on December 27, a day after she suffered a heart attack, when we learned that her mother died after suffering a stroke. It was a stunning turn of events, taking two stars, two Hollywood icons, a mother and a daughter, a day apart.

Debbie, 84, was known for her breakout performance as an ingenue in Singin’ in the Rain, going toe-to-toe with Gene Kelly. She was nominated for an Oscar for her role in The Unsinkable Molly Brown. Her marriage to singing star Eddie Fisher, Carrie’s dad, came to an end after his affair with Elizabeth Taylor. He would marry Taylor who would then leave him for Richard Burton.

While Carrie will forever be celebrated for her iconic role as Princess Leia, Fisher’s career was longer and far more diverse than Star Wars.  She made her film debut in Shampoo, starring opposite Warren Beatty. She went on to make many more films, including The Man With One Red Shoe, When Harry Met Sally, and the far underrated Soapdish alongside Sally Fields, Whoopi Goldberg, Kevin Kline, Elizabeth Shue, and Robert Downey, Jr.  Her greatest talents, though, were put to good use as a writer. Fisher was  known as being one of Hollywood’s best “script doctors,” sought after to fix troubled screenplays.  She used to say her job was to make the girls smarter, but that the male lead actors were always asking her not to make the women funnier. She didn’t always comply. Fisher’s doctored screenplays included such successful films as Sister Act, The Last Action Hero, Outbreak, and The Wedding Singer.  She also worked on The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles with her old colleague George Lucas.

LOS ANGELES - NOV 28: Carrie Fisher at the Book Signing for "The Princess Diarist" at Barnes & Nobl

Carrie Fisher at the Book Signing for “The Princess Diarist” at Barnes and Noble on November 28, 2016 in Los Angeles.

Her debut novel was the semi-autobiographical Postcards From the Edge, which she later wrote the screenplay for as well. (The movie version stars Meryl Streep, Shirley MacLaine, and Dennis Quaid. Don’t miss it!)  She would write four additional novels, and they were all to some extent based on her own life. Wishful Drinking was published as a memoir following her one-woman play which she performed on Broadway. It in that work that she would  pre-write her famous obituary: “No matter how I go, I want it reported that I drowned in moonlight, strangled by own bra.” Her last book, The Princess Diarist, was published on November 22, and she was busy promoting it, often with her loyal dog, Gary, at her side.   

Fisher suffered from bipolar disorder and in the past had been addicted to cocaine and prescription drugs. She spoke honestly and bravely about all these issues, becoming an advocate for de-stigmatizing mental illness and the dangers of self-medication. Because of this Harvard University awarded Fisher its Annual Outstanding Lifetime Achievement Award in Cultural Humanism.

Go in peace Carrie and Debbie. Go in moonlight, dancing.

Photos from Bigstock. Top photo: Carrie Fisher, Debbie Reynolds at at the “Debbie Reynolds: The Auction Finale” VIP Reception at Debbie Reynolds Dance Studio on May 14, 2014 in North Hollywood, CA.