Mags Johnson My family settled down to watch this classic on Thanksgiving eve after our company left. It was the cream on the pie that day! We laughed together and totally relaxed. How wonderful and refreshing to view a movie that treats nuns with respect. A show that demonstrates how teachers can help young students under their care. All done in a very funny and creative way. Rosalind Russell gives a stellar performance here. Haley Mills is great! I am a teacher and this movie shows how even the most stubborn student is affected by good role models. You will laugh and that is good for the soul and heart! We bought two copies of this movie for Christmas and gave them as gifts. Treat yourself and your family to a delightful one of a kind movie. Purchase it and watch once a year!

Tad Pole . . . THE TROUBLE WITH ANGELS is a "scathingly brilliant" movie full of magic. The magic of Orphan-Hood. The magic of riding a train to boarding school. The magic of attending an academy shaped like a castle. The magic of smoking cigarettes in the Girls' Room and cigars in the cellar. The magic of an unscheduled fire drill. The magic of K.P. Duty eight days a week. The magic of forbidden hallways. The magic of bubbles. The magic of risking school expulsion. The magic of snow sifting through the dorm windows. The magic of burlesque dancing. The magic of first brassieres. The magic of the Stations of the Cross. The magic of summer vacation. The magic of school band competition. The magic of learning to swim. The magic of needlework. The magic of community service. The magic of going overseas to teach lepers. The magic of Taking the Veil. Obviously, it would be IMPOSSIBLE to cram any MORE magic than this into one movie. Who says nuns are no fun? This is the funniest nun movie Hollywood ever made until Joseph Guzman's loosely-based remake of THE TROUBLE WITH ANGELS came out in 2010: for something that will REALLY knock your socks off, follow-up ANGELS by enjoying Guzman's NUDE NUNS WITH BIG GUNS!

bkoganbing Rosalind Russell, Loretta Young, and Irene Dunne were the Catholic triple threat of Hollywood stardom. All of these women were prominent Catholic lay individuals and later on in their careers got to do a little outreach for their religion. I don't think Roz ever served the Catholic cause better than by playing a Mother Superior whose convent runs a Catholic Girl's High School. The kids board there, it's a place for rich men of the Catholic persuasion to dump their teenage daughters.No one of the students is more aware of it than Hayley Mills and she's one rebellious child. She and her friend June Harding become the Lucille Ball and Vivian Vance of the student body, giving no end of grief to Rosalind Russell and the rest of the sisters.It is true that Rosalind Russell stated in her memoirs that she and Hayley Mills did not get along in the making of The Trouble With Angels. Quite different from what Maureen O'Hara said about Hayley during the making of The Parent Trap. What a difference six years can make. But in teenage years it's a lifetime of change. Hayley Mills even after finishing her contract with Disney could not escape that image and her youthful appearance worked against her getting really adult parts. Later that year she finally broke the mold with The Family Way back in her native Great Britain. Russell attributed it to hormonal change as well in her life.This film has some touches of sadness as well unlike the sequel Where Angels Go Troubles Follow. One of the sisters dies unexpectedly and Hayley's life takes an unexpected turn that she would have told you that you were nuts if you didn't see it. Russell's an old fashioned Mother Superior, but wise and patient with her charges. She's most definitely not Auntie Mame in a habit.Given all that the Catholic church has recently dealt with you could not make a film like this today. So when this one is run, enjoy it and think of more innocent times.

PeachHamBeach I always like good comedies and when a comedy story has just the right amount and kind of drama added in somewhere appropriate, the result is flawlessness.Hayley Mills gives a wonderful performance in this film from her "post-Disney" era. THE TROUBLE WITH ANGELS is a fun film without any kind of immediate "plot", about the friendship of two girls, one headstrong and deeply rebellious, the other a somewhat dizzy tagalong, and how their pranks torment the Reverend Mother (Rosalind Russell) for 4 years in a catholic girls' school.You don't get to know many of the classmates of Mary (Mills) and her pal Rachel (June Harding), but there are interesting characters in the nuns Sister Constance, Sister Elizabeth, Sister Prudence, Sister Clarissa, Sister Celestine, and of course Sister Ligouri and Reverend Mother. Rosalind Russell does a perfect performance, and I find her voice very strong and distinctive.Each moment, each scene, is a story in itself. Even scenes with no dialogue, such as the one where Mary looks out the window at Christmas to see Reverend Mother walking in the snow to one of the statue saints, is saying something to you. This film is great to me because even though there are "scathingly brilliant" comedy scenes involving cigars, bubble bath crystals and plaster of Paris, there are quiet moments where you are just studying the characters and how their lives are changing and how their perspectives are too. The heartfelt drama is always at the right moments, and gives this film the genre of comedy-drama, rather than silly slapstick. This world, as seen through the eyes of Mary Clancy, and also of Reverend Mother, is a world you might want to visit for a couple of hours. It might be too "slow" or "mellow" a film for some, but for me, it was a wonderful surprise!