Going My Way (1944): Eitan’s Take

1944 was the last year that the Academy used painted plaster Oscars (instead of gold-plated ones), and I can’t remember a film more deserving of a plaster Oscar than Bing Crosby’s flat, clumsy 1944 “classic” Going My Way. Sure, I admire its warm heart and its ambition of telling a neat little story about a talented young priest and the people whose lives he influences, but not even Jesus Christ himself could save this dull film. Shifting clumsily from weird and uninvited musical scenes (including a wholly unnecessary rendition of “Habanera” from Carmen and the utterly lifeless title song) to scenes depicting the quaint (read: DULL) goings-on of a charmingly strapped-for-cash Catholic church in a sort of fantasy New York City where the only bad things happening are turkey theft and baseballs sailing through windows, Going My Way never really finds its soul. If it had shot for the moon and explored the way Crosby’s Father O’Malley reconciled his love for music, art, and secular happiness with his religious life, the film could have been a hugely successful meditation on modern religion, as well as a charming musical backed by serious plot points that truly invited song into the story.

Instead, what we have here is a lifeless bowl of cinematic oatmeal: watery, loose, and begging for some spice. Yes, Crosby is charming. Yes, his chemistry with ornery old Barry Fitzgerald is commendable. And yes, “Swinging on a Star” is lovable and appropriately syrupy. But these elements do not a great movie make. I was thinking the entire time that Going My Way would have fit in better during the self-important run of Best Picture winners in the 1930’s; it clearly wants to be a classic musical, but its notes fail to resonate and its feet fail to leave the ground. For Bing Crosby alone, I award this movie a 4/10.