Back to school - Ann as Sally in Sally and Saint Anne (1952)

Back to school this week with Ann Blyth as the awkward Sally in the surprisingly screwball comedy SALLY AND SAINT ANNE (1952).  From my book, Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star.:


Sally and Saint Anne (1952) is a sweet and silly souvenir of a time when movies unabashedly basked in a warm glow of nostalgia even if the story was intended to be current and modern.  We have the strange feeling watching this that the filmmakers knew they were preserving an era, and we, the audience in the future, are the proverbial fly on the wall.  As such, we may enjoy it more than the original audience did. 



Though one could call this a family movie, in a time when most films were suitable for the whole family this quiet little gem is unfettered by the dubious yoke of being wholesome.  It is wholesome, too, but it is also a sly parody of doctrine, dogma, and a boldly tongue-in-cheek look at the peculiarities of the highly ritualistic Catholic faith.  As such, it is as courageously unselfconscious about what it is as is the main character—a teenage girl pursuing an unselfconscious friendship with a saint to whom she prays, and her family of screwballs unselfconsciously pursuing their own happiness...