Dominique

Despite the best efforts of the actors, this movie is awful. The screenplay can only be described as moronic. I appreciate that it is the songs that draw people to watch it, but if so, do stick to the record.

It's a shame too because Debbie Reynolds, Greer Garson, Ricardo Montelban, Katherine Ross, Agnes Moorehead, Chad Everett all do as well as can be expected - and I am reminded of how wonderful a singing voice Debbie Reynolds has. Moreover, Montelban is truly believable as a priest - as are Garson and Reynolds as nuns. Ross is just fine.

But this is more saccharine than most of the Flying Nun episodes. It's strange too - because most movies about nuns have for some reason been quite good - Black Narcissus, Heaven Knows Mr. Allison, The Nun's Story, The French movie, Therese, The Song of Bernadette, even The Trouble with Angels (which bowled me over with how affectingly it evolved).

Most movies succeed in the writing - this one had a great real story to tell - even without emphasizing the astonishingly grim post-convent life of its protagonist -- from her family's life in Paris during W.W.II (her father a figure in the Resistance) to the fascinating relationship with music. (Think of how fantastically the movie Hilary and Jackie showed a woman's conflicts about having her life revolve around music).

When I was a boy, Sister Soeur's songs were the leitmotif of our Catholic grade school - we all had to learn them in French, sing them in Christmas concerts for our parents, etc. It's such a shame that such an awful movie celebrates such light, cheery music. It's truly not worth watching.

I agree that Debbie sings some of the best musical numbers of her career, and between the songs in "Bundle of Joy" and "The Singing Nun" I'll take "The Singing Nun".

Just as the film "Jeannie Eagels" is a fantasy very loosely based on the life of ill-fated actress Jeannie Eagels and as such basically only got one or two facts straight, so does "The Singing Nun" stretch reality and we wretch. Stretch and Wretch.

On the other hand, if we accept these films as the fiction they are, then they become good "moral" stories. And so "The Singing Nut" Debbie Reynolds sings and dimples her way through a film that resembles reality in only the fact that a nun named "Sister Smile" actually put out an album of her songs and it caused a big flurry of worry for the Sister.

Maybe some of the songs in the film were actually written by Jeanne-Paul Marie Deckers but the words for "Dominique" seem to not be the same words shown in the English translation of the song on my copy of the original album. There is a song called "Sister Adele" about her Spanish guitar which is also not the same song as the one played in the film, and another funny item is the guitar Debbie Reynolds wields happens to be a Nylon Stringed Classical guitar- A Spanish Guitar does not have a round hole, a Spanish Guitar happens to have F-Holes and steel strings.

Even though this film is fiction and fantasy and ideology, I do not cringe when I see it like I do "The Sound of Music" or "My Fair Lady"- where I do not know why they bothered to write dialogue when they could have just sung those movies all the way through with no dialogue whatsoever. although the music and song in those films is overwhelming, the fact that they are nonstop though the films is also overwhelming and can only be enjoyed in very small doses. On the other hand, "The flying, er, Singing Nun" has some good acting by Anges Moorehead who is my favourite Red Headed Actress and Bey**ch, oh I just loved Agnes, she could do anything including all kinds of ethnic parts, Ricardo Montal-Khan dons a priestly habit rather than a pair of swim trunks or 23rd Century Barbarian Garb, and Katherine Ross is very good: Almost to the point that she does not resemble a girl who is heading toward prostitution, she is too squeaky-clean. Someone made a comment that all this film was missing was Bing Crosby and I agree, where was he when this was made? The main reason I like this film is because I loved the song "Dominique" as a small child - Everyone loved that song, and I mean it was everywhere when it came out. This film- Although getting the life of Soeur Sourire totally wrong, does NOT get wrong the feeling o the early 60's which I happen to remember because "I was there". I do not mean in Belgium, but in 1963, and although I grew up in southern California and not Belgium, the outdoor scenes in this film make me remember things I have forgotten for decades.

One thing the film is accurate about: That a nun could write a song, record it, and it becomes not just a local hit that was apparently originally intended to be sold only locally to help the Convent, but by a set of extremely lucky circumstances this song would also become an International hit, a worldwide hit and a song of comfort after the assassination of JFK. The film does not exaggerate the impact the song had on the world, as a matter of fact, it waters that impact down a bit.

Sister Anne had a different fate other than the one shown at the end of the film, but that does not matter to me: This film is fantasy, not reality: Because I want to think it could have been good like that for the real Singing Nun, but life is sometimes not as simple as shown in movies.

I am looking at the artwork on and in the Album Cover and there is even a set of lithographed prints... And ultimately that art speaks about a faith that is simple, and that is the only thing that matters really, and I wish that could have been brought out in this film- But it is not, it is not even mentioned at all, and he artwork was just as important as the music.

Debbie Reynolds portrays the Singing Nun based on a true story, Ricardo Montalban also stars. The music is light and lilting and completely enjoyable with Debbie Reynolds singing many songs throughout the film. At several points you question whether the order is the right place for Sister Ann as several intriguing opportunities are available. Enjoyable music and film.

Hot on the heels of the real French musical sensation Soeur Sourire, hyped internationally as The Singing Nun, comes this Hollywood version of her life story, with none other than Debbie Reynolds in the lead role singing "Dominique." Hollywood greats Greer Garson, Agnes Moorehead, and Ricardo Montalban make this movie a treat to watch, but after you watch it, check out the real Singing Nun on YouTube. Her story is not so sweet. ---from Musicals on the Silver Screen, American Library Association, 2013

As I've been told, when the big boys at 20th Century Fox first saw The Sound of Music in their studio projection room, they said, "This is going to bomb all over the place, so let's get it out in the theaters, make as much money as we can off this fiasco and pull it back in. So, remember that in those days, you didn't know what the preview would be until the film started rolling in the movie theater, and if my memory serves me correct, it was given a sneak preview in Minneapolis, and after the first half played, everyone screamed, clapped and whistled, and after the second half it sounded like the roof of theater was caving in because of the positive response, so Fox said, "Now wait a minute! Maybe we've got something here that we're not aware of, so they released The Sound of Music nationwide on a Reserve Seat basis, and when the critics saw it, they all reported that it would put everyone in a diabetic comma and would last a year, but they were wrong, and the rest is history! O.K., so "The Singing Nun" is not The Sound of Music! Big deal! So, The Sound of Music was just about playing out its 3 year run in most theaters, and as usual, someone in Hollywood says, "Let's cash in on the popularity of the movie and do our own musical about a bunch of Nuns, and Metro Goldwyn Mayers effort was "The Singing Nun" with Jewish convert Debbie Reynolds playing a Nun; that sings as well as Debbie Reynolds, and in all fairness, the movie might not be what the big boys at M.G.M. wanted, but it gave Debbie Reynolds the chance to do her finest singing ever! Her vocals in the movie, as far as I'm concerned, are superb! So, what about the cast and the film itself. Here's Greer Garson at the end of her career, Marshall Thompson, at the end of his, Ricardo Montalban famous for swimming with Esther Williams in her swimming musicals, Agnes Moorehead still looking like she'd like to cast a nasty on Darrin in Bewitched, and Chad Everett still looking like Doctor Gannon who claimed more animism's in his hospital T.V. show than would ever see on T.V. Soap General Hospital or Greay's Anatomy! The Singing Nun is not a good movie, but it's not a bad one either, and in ways it's very entertaining, but once again, it does afford Debbie Reynolds to do her finest singing ever in any of her films! Her singing in The Singing Nun is superb and spiritually uplifting, and fulfilling!