Ave Explores Series | Mary | Week 4

Mary in the Golden Age of Hollywood Cinema

by Maria Morera Johnson

Hollywood’s Golden Age, from about 1920 to 1970, offers a selection of films with Catholic themes. I love a good Catholic movie! Many people will include Bells of St Mary’s at the top of their lists or go a little more hardcore for something like Song of Bernadette. At my house, it wasn’t really Easter until we watched The Ten Commandments and The Greatest Story Ever Told. My favorite film from that era is The Trouble with Angels. None of these films feature the Mother of God in an overt way.

The Blessed Virgin Mary often gets short shrift in such films, appearing briefly if at all, and is almost always depicted one-dimensionally. Part of that might be because so very little is said about the Blessed Mother in scripture. Unfortunately, some of these films reduce Mary to a caricature that reflects an inaccurate representation, if not a full misrepresentation.  The Blessed Mother was not an innocent young woman who had something done to her and then stood by passively; she was an active participant in Salvation History!

Nevertheless, Hollywood’s Golden Age features some deeply religious and specifically Catholic films and many more that hint at Catholic themes without explicitly stating them. When the writers get it right, we enjoy subtle but powerful images that speak to Mary’s influence in our lives. My favorite Mary-sighting occurs in the 1957 film An Affair to Remember starring Deborah Kerr and Cary Grant and directed by Leo McCarey,.

Besides being an iconic romantic tear-jerker, An Affair to Remember treats faith as a part of family life. Nick Ferrante visits his grandmother at her home and brings his new friend (and love interest) Terry McKay with him. McKay is enchanted by Ferrante’s grandmother, whom she meets as the elderly woman exits the family chapel. McKay asks if she may visit the chapel. The exchange is natural, and even a little funny, as the match-making grandmother suggests her grandson go pray, too.

There’s no proselytizing in the scene. McKay prays silently, and Ferrante joins her awkwardly—we don’t know what they may have in their hearts, but the scene speaks to a sweet vulnerability from both. To the casual viewer, the pair kneel to pray in front of a statue of the Blessed Mother. The context is incidental, as the objective is to place the couple elbow to elbow in an intimate setting that serves the story. However, the faithful Catholic sees more and the layers of meaning enhance the scene in a lovely way.

Nick Ferrante demonstrates respect for and obedience to his grandmother, who is not only the matriarch of his family, but quickly extends her maternal role to Terry McKay. The grandmother’s role here is Marian; she takes on the mantle of spiritual mothering and gently but firmly directs her grandson to join McKay in the chapel. Just as Mary always points us to her Son, the grandmother points her wayward grandson to the chapel to encounter the Lord.

This scene marks a change in both Ferrante and McKay. Their attraction for each other deepens, but something else happens to them under Mary’s gaze in that chapel. Their hearts turn to each other, but also turn to the good.

The audience understands that Nick Ferrante will abandon his womanizing ways and Terry McKay will give up her life as a kept woman to pursue authentic love for each other. This shift in their consciences and later, in their actions, happens in the chapel in the presence of the Blessed Mother who nudged them toward the good. As Christians, we understand the search for what is good is ultimately the search for God. My Catholic sensibilities are pleased by this subtle movement of grace in their lives. It isn’t easy, as this new direction comes with sacrifice and a little redemptive suffering, but we are hopeful for the happy ending that eventually comes.

In this film, art imitates life. I’ve always felt that Hollywood’s best writers have a Catholic perspective and nothing supports this conclusion like the beautifully crafted and carefully hidden Mary-sightings in films such as An Affair to Remember. The presence of Mary offers us a deeper and more meaningful experience with the stories because we recognize her not just as the Mother of God, but as our heavenly mother, too. These Mary sightings in the movies teach us to look for the intersections where life imitates art: Mary’s presence in our lives may be subtle but can be seen everywhere if we would look with our eyes of faith, as grace is all around us.

Download this article as a PDF here.

Maria Morera Johnson is the author of My Badass Book of Saints, Super Girls and Halos, and Our Lady of Charity.

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