Going My Way

The arrival of easy-going young priest Father Chuck O’Malley (Bing Crosby) at debt-ridden St Dominic’s Church does not sit easily with ageing Father Fitzgibbon (Barry Fitzgerald), who has been in charge for 45 years. However, O’Malley is soon reaching out to the local, disenfranchised youth and swelling the parishioners’ ranks through the medium of song. Leo McCarey’s feel-good hit won seven Oscars, including Best Picture, Director and Screenplay, and spawned a sequel for Crosby, ‘The Bells of St Mary’s’.
This irresistible Oscar winner from writer-director Leo McCarey (An Affair to Remember) stars Bing Crosby as a low-key, crooning priest who joins the parish of a no-nonsense but sweet old Irish man of the cloth (Barry Fitzgerald). While Bing turns local toughs into a choir, the elder priest worries over the church building fund and whether he’ll get a chance to see his old mother back in Ireland before she dies. One would have to have a heart of stone not to be won over by this charmer, with a lovely ending guaranteed to make you bawl for a week.