John Hatrzell Spence penned the autobiography One Foot in Heaven that became the basis for the 1941 Best Picture nominee of the same name. Warner Brothers produced the adaptation and it became one of only a few films to be nominated for Best Picture without a single nomination in any other category. Watching it after over eighty years since its initial release it is obvious why that is the case. It is a perfectly adequate film with a strong moral message that the world needed as it was plunged deep into World War II. The themes of spirituality and self-sacrifice are still relevant today. Unfortunately the production lets it down as the acting is often stiff and the pacing lacks any real momentum. It’s hardly a boring movie but it gets bogged down sermonizing and exposing the pious for their hypocrisies. It’s a message movie that becomes a little too much about the message forgetting that it needs to tell a compelling story, too.
The film opens in 1904. William Spence (Fredric March), a medical student on the verge of becoming a full fledged doctor, feels the call to put all that aside and devote his life to the ministry. His bride-to-be, Hope Morris (Martha Scott), accepts this decision knowing that it will mean years of financial and personal struggles inherent with such a calling. This decision also puts them at odds with her prominent and affluent parents. Will’s decision requires them to move out of Canada to the United States as there are no vacancies in their home country. He takes a position in rural Iowa that is the beginning of many frequent moves around the district, scraping a living from the poor box and the occasional wedding fees. Hope yearns for a more permanent home for their growing family, one where they may have stability as well as a home that isn’t falling apart around them but such a wish never seems to come true.
Will believes in a strict adherence to the guidelines of the church but is not adverse to the idea of changing times leading to changing opinions about certain pastimes. On one such occasion, upon hearing his son had gone to see a movie at the local theater he takes him the following week with the intention of showing him why it is a bad thing to do. Instead he sees a morality tale with a good message that gets him to not only reconsider his opinions on the subject but to also preach about it at the pulpit the following Sunday.
Eventually he is assigned to an old run down church in Colorado that happens to have many well-off members. He sets his mind to building a new church with the assistance of the members only to begin bumping heads with the very members whose financial backing and expertise he will need to make it happen. Things get so bad at one point that several of the prominent women in the congregation spread a rumor about Will’s eldest son that gets him dismissed from the school in the hopes it will also convince Will to pack up and move on, himself.
There is a strong message in this film about service to God and tamping down the natural instincts of man to be selfish and self-thinking even in the little things in life. Early on Will has a conversation with his son about not playing outside with the other boys on Sunday because there is an expectation, being the preacher’s son, to not frolicking around on the sabbath. Likewise, a similar conversation is had with his daughter about dancing. This is one of the chief frustrations of this film. Will is just a little too stoic and stodgy of a character. We see him struggle with his temper but only for a second or two before he is able to put up a façade and revert to a stone faced practically perfect example of Christian propriety. Whenever anything comes up that challenges that he has a ready-made list straight out of the Methodist handbook that he can quote as to why it is the way it is. It makes for a dull and uninteresting character. Compare him to Bing Crosby’s Father O’Malley and you can easily see a more interesting character who also represents the faith.
Will’s character rubs off on his wife, Hope, too. She is relegated to being the supportive wife who rarely gets much more to do than keep house and support her husband no matter how dire the situation, is. There is a sense that she is tamping down an instinct to speak up about how bad things are for them but can never quite voice it. When she is speaking up it’s either about the desire to have a permanent home for her children or, in one scene in the film, pressuring her husband to finally consent to naming their youngest baby who is several months old and still without a name. Even in this latter moment when he finally does consent to baptizing the baby and thus finalizing a name for him he steps on her wishes by modifying the name she wants for him, doing so at the baptism in front of the whole congregation where she will be unable to object. She is obviously upset, but lowers her head and accepts what has happened.
The latter part of the movie is dedicated to the building of a new church and some underhanded methods are employed on both sides to finally get things done. There is a lot of butting heads and, eventually, lies and deceit. Will doesn’t come out of this clean any more than the women spreading the lies do. Likewise, when a very wealthy former member wants to return to the church, Will uses this opportunity to secure a rather large donation in order to allow her back. This seems like a rather un-Christlike response to the situation.
There are quite a few scenes that by themselves are very enjoyable to watch as well as moments that can make you smile as well as understand a different point-of-view. The scene in the theater where Will and his son are watching the silent movie is the best of these. Will begins with a level of stoicism that comes with a man who thinks he knows what he is going to experience and is prepared to lecture his son throughout it. This changes as the story plays out of screen and Will’s mannerisms and expression tells us far more than any lecture, one way or the other. Likewise there is a scene where the church choir is singing badly and is immediately upstaged by the youth singing beautifully. The standard choir are upset about this as well as Will’s recommendation to the congregation to give the choir the summer off and let the kids sing during that time. It shows a level of piousness and pride that has leaked into the hearts of those being deposed that will contribute heavily into what happens later.
This is a film that has its heart in the right place but is just executed in such a way as to muddy up its message. Will’s family is shown as upstanding and examples to the community but there is very little love seen amongst them. Hope in particular comes across as the downtrodden wife who bears it all with longsuffering patience but rarely shows any real love for her husband. She deals with the situation she has married into but not much more than that. The makeup used to age her throughout the years makes her look tired and depressed rather than just older, too, undermining her character even further. These actors are capable of better performances than this but none of that is on display here. It’s an okay film but really not much more than that.
Academy Award Nominations:
Outstanding Motion Picture: Hal B. Wallis
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Release Date: October 2, 1941
Running Time: 108 Minutes
Not Rated
Starring: Fredric March, Martha Scott, Beulah Bondi and Gene Lockhart
Directed By: Irving Rapper
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