Song of Bernadette, the

As Bernadette, Jones is the calm center at the heart of the storm. The scenes in which Bernadette sees the Lady (an unbilled and pregnant Linda Darnell) are presented by director Henry King with a elegant simplicity. Bernadette has a strong and simple faith, which is how she is able to endure the battering by those around her. It is in her victory over these opponents that make this story work, and Bernadette's opponents are a superb cast of supporting players. Charles Bickford is Peyramale Dean of Lourdes, who has to deal with the idea that this lazy and less than intelligent peasant girl has seen the Virgin Mother, Vincent Price the cold hearted local prosecutor Dutour, Lee J. Cobb as the reasonable and scientific Dr. Dozous, Anne Revere as Bernadett's mother, and Gladys Cooper as Sister Vauzous, the nun whose jealousy of Bernadette has quite an emotional payoff in the film.

A best selling version of Bernadette's story was written by Franz Werfel in 1942 and 20th Century Fox bought the rights to make an ambitious screen version which manages to avoid the faults of sentimentality. They also searched for a newcomer for the title role and looked at Anne Baxter, Teresa Wright, Linda Darnell and Gene Tierney before settling on Jones, who had small parts in two previous films as Phylis Isley and was renamed to have a clean slate as an actress. Winning the Oscar pretty much speaks to the success of their efforts. The film also deservedly won Oscars for Arthur Miller's cinematography and Alfred Newman's score. Ironically, Newman replaced the famous composer Igor Stravinsky on the film, and the second movement of Stravinsky's Symphony in Three Movements evolved from his original unused score.

The long awaited DVD version of "The Song of Bernadette" makes up for the delay with some excellent extras, including the A&E "Biography" of Jones, a theatrical trailer, a World War II newsreel of Jones visiting the troops, and an excellent commentary track by two of Jones' biographers. This is classy treatment for one of Hollywood's classiest films.

The DVD is extremely high quality. The sound and picture have been restored beautifully. There are many extras also which merit high praise....An Audio COmmentary of the picture by Jones biographer Edward Epstein, the complete A&E biography of Jones, the original theatrical trailer, a movietone newsreel with Jones presenting American GIs an award, subtitles in English and Spanish and Audio in English and Spanish.

The only complaint I have is that in the Spanish Audio the orginal Oscar Winning Musical Score has been all but replaced by a modern musical score that detracts from the film. Why they did this I will never know!!!! There was absolutely no reason for it. Thank God, though, the English version has been kept intact.

Other than this, though, the DVD is extremely high quality and will disappoint no fan of this fine motion picture.

A beautiful film, lovingly made in during Hollywood's Golden Age. This film withstands the test of time and will remain a beacon of achievement for Hollywood filmmaking forever! Enjoy!!