A SCATHINGLY BRILLIANT IDEA


        I’ve thought a lot about the old movie, The Trouble With Angels, a 1966 comedy set at St. Francis, a fictional all-girls Catholic boarding school.  The movie boasted of an all-female 
cast that included Rosaline Russell playing the role of Mother Superior who’s constantly at odds with Mary Clancy (Hayley Mills) and Rachel Devery (June Harding). Even the director, Ida Lapino, was female—a rare feat for women in the mid-1960s.


The episodic story line followed the two disgruntled teenagers through their sophomore, junior, and senior high-school years.  Mary was the rebellious, prankish instigator who always said to Rachel, “I’ve got the most scathingly brilliant idea!”   Throughout the movie, they pulled pranks on the sisters, repeatedly getting into trouble and turning the convent school upside down.  


Mary also resented Mother Superior’s authority and often puzzled over why any woman would choose the life of a nun.  Over time, the sister’s examples of dedication, devotion, kindness, love, and generosity touched her, and she began seeing their life was one of fulfillment, not deprivation.  Mary received the call  her senior year and, after graduation, remained at the school and began her novitiate in the order.  


Although the convent-school setting seemed absurdly archaic to me in 1966, Mary’s decision to become a nun at the end of the movie felt deeply satisfying.  I wasn’t Catholic, but the romance and solitude of the convent got to me, not to mention a young woman’s commitment to faith and anything but a conventional life.  As a budding young writer and a wannabe feminist, I’d been similarly called and felt the need for my own solitude and commitment to an unconventional life.  Simply, I identified with the rebellious Mary. 

          The movie continues to be one of my all-time favorite guilty pleasures. It’s like candy canes and macaroni and cheese.  Yes, on the surface it seems dumb and dated, but it’s also mildly subversive.  Mary was a scathingly brilliant rebel who inspired my inner writer and emboldened the young feminist in me. She remains indelible, just as my own version of that rebel survives in me.   


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