Drama
Episodic look at the life of a minister and his family as they move from one parish to another.
Directors
Fredric March
William Spence
Martha Scott
Hope Morris Spence
Beulah Bondi
Lydia Sandow
Gene Lockhart
Preston Thurston
Elisabeth Fraser
Eileen Spence at Age 17
Harry Davenport
Elias Samson
Laura Hope Crews
Mrs. Preston Thurston
Grant Mitchell
Clayton Potter
Moroni Olsen
Dr. John Romer
Frankie Thomas
Hartzell Spence
Jerome Cowan
Dr. Horrigan
Ernest Cossart
John E. Morris
Nana Bryant
Mrs. Morris
Carlotta Jelm
Eileen Spence
Peter Caldwell
Hartzell Spence
Casey Johnson
Frazer Spence
Dorothy Adams
Woman Behind Hope at Baptism (uncredited)
Joan Anderson
Child (uncredited)
Directors
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Review
Featured review
I was a little apprehensive when this started. I though we were in for one of those twee American bible-thumping exercises with soft choral music and rousing sermons. Actually, though, it’s quite a fun chronology of the life of pastor “Spence” (Fredric March) and his wife “Hope” (Martha Scott). To begin with they live in Canada, haven’t two cents to rub together and with barely half a loaf to live on are hoping that some would-be newly weds will stop by for a $2 or $5 wedding! With their first born arriving, they move south across the border for something a little more prosperous - and that’s when their snowball starts to roll through, quite literally, fire and some brimstone. March is on good form, as is the under-used Scott and the trio of Beulah Bondi, Gene Lockhart and Laura Hope Crews add a buy-your-way-into-heaven potency as wealthy citizens who are all for helping their minister succeed - just so long as he does it on their terms. When they discover the twentieth leak in their roof, they conclude that it would be easier to build a new church than a new parsonage, and those wealthy “patrons” become more important and downright obnoxious than ever. There is a Christian message here, but it’s not so much a religious one as one that ridicules the pompous and the gossips whilst encouraging humanity and decency - a quest all the more poignant as war soon rages in Europe. There is an headline on one of their newspapers that declares “Austria at war with Serbia” and I did wonder how many watching would ever have heard of either country at the time. They sure had by the end! It also illustrates just how poor as church mice church people actually were, and in the end it rather potently suggests that faith is much more than an edifice - even one with a $10,000 stained glass window.
Geronimo196720 Jul, 2025
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