Girls, When It Comes To Crazy Nun Movies, You Have GOT To See "Black Narcissus!!!!!!!!!!!"

                                From Debbie Reynolds as "The Singing Nun," to Rosalind Russell in "The Trouble With Angels," or Loretta Young and Celeste Holm in "Come To The Stable, Ingrid Bergman in "The Bells Of St. Mary's," not to mention....and we don't DARE forget, "The Sound Of Music, with those two biggies, Audrey Hepburn in "The Nun's Story" and Jennifer Jones in "The Song Of Bernadette," my girls on here how much I, and all of you, just love those nun movies.  I am sure there is someone out there who just loves Mary Tyler Moore in "Change Of Habit!"

                                But there is one nun movie that seems to fall under the radar, and get forgotten.  That is Michael Powell's 1947 film, "Black Narcissus."  Which just wrapped up a run at the Film Forum here in New York.  I wish I had had the time to visit this classic on the big screen.

                                Girls, this is a hoot!  This is the one, where, in one of Deborah Kerr's first films, we get to see a woman, whose pre-nun life was something of a wild one!  And this was a good six years before Deborah Kerr shocked women like my mother, with the beach scene, atop Burt Lancaster, in "From Here To Eternity."  Which my sister, then 13, was forbidden to see!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                 But thee is more.  The convent is isolated, atop a mountainous cliff, and then there is a face-painted Jean Simmons made up to look like an Indian princess, not to mention a fully clothed Sabu  (yes, darlings!!!!!!!!) lurking around the scene.  Of course, with a mountainous convent and a group of nus, you know that sexual repression is lurking about.  In a way, this is almost a kind of precursor to "Picnic At Hanging Rock," decades later!

                                  If all I have mentioned is not enough to see the film, this is the grabber.  Sister Ruth (played by Kathleen Byron, who steals the show!!!!) develops some kind of thing for Kerr's character, Sister Clodagh--I am not clear if it feelings of lesbianism, or just good old resentment--and the two (because Sister Ruth is, by now, mad!!!!) get into it, outside the convent, with the result being they reach the edge of the mountainous, Himalayan cliff, and Sister Ruth tries to push Clodagh over, but ends up falling off herself!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                 Darlings, until Anne Bancroft and Shirley Maclaine went at each other on the roof in "The Turning Point," thirty years later, this was the gold standard for cat fights in the movies!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I am surprised no composer has ever tried to make an opera out of "Black Narcissus;" it is certainly florid enough, and is a lot livelier than "Dialogue Of The Carmelites!!!!!!!!!!!!"

                                    It is one of the great nun movies, and yet it never seems to get its due!!!!!!!!!!!  So, take a break from "The Good Wife," or whatever darlings, rent his one, and have a look!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                     This film will  send my girls right over a cliff!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!