Journey Into Light

This independent production could easily be taken for one of those semi-professional cinematic Sunday school sermons intended for church halls were it not for the menacing presence of Sterling Hayden in the lead and the contradictory visual stimuli of Elwood Bredell's crisp, unsparing documentary-style photography of skid row (Weegee, no less, was a technical consultant on the film), yet populated by an extraordinary collection of familiar Hollywood faces ranging from H.B.Warner to former Keystone Kop Hank Mann. (John Berkes, who is a standout as the piano-playing Racky, died shortly after the production wrapped.)

After feeling that both God and his congregation have forsaken him by abandoning his alcoholic wife to a miserable fate, the Reverend Hayden angrily rejects both, tears off his dog collar and spends a remarkable amount of the film's relatively short running time scraping ignominiously along the lower depths of Los Angeles while vehemently badmouthing God at every opportunity. This being Hollywood during the early fifties, surely he's eventually going to regain his faith and it will all end upliftingly? It sure takes him a long time, and comes suspiciously abruptly!

A shabby story from skid row about bums and fallen women and sanctimonious slum missions where Sterling Hayden repeatedly falls down into the gutter and stays there, turns out to be a universally interesting and overwhelmingly good story. There are moments in this film that you will remember forever.

He is not a fallen priest. It's not his fault that his wife after two stillborns turns alcoholic and ruins his life and position to crown it all with a bloody suicide, which turns him naturally enough not only away from God but against God, so that he associates with the bottom layer of society, with Thomas Mitchell in a perfect role for him as an honest con man, as the desperate man has nothing else to do.

The most touching and human scene of all, among the many in this deeply human film, is when the preacher can't lead the service as Viveca Lindfors, his daughter who saves the show, is in coma at the hospital, so Sterling has no choice but to stand up as leading preacher himself for the first time since his wife committed suicide. He does it reluctantly and with great hesitation, he almost stumbles up at the pulpet, but then something happens in the congregation. Dirty old men, beggars, loafers and what not are all touched by the moment of crisis at the critical condition of the girl they all love, so they all, in various ways, fall down to prayer, one bum leading the heart-rending reaction.

But there are many moments like this. Some moods in this film remind you of Chaplin's "City Lights" and other such extremely poetical films, for this is cinematic poetry caught and set in realism. Vittorio de Sica couldn't have done it better. You will never forget this film.

When the film begins, John (Sterling Hayden) is a preacher in the middle of his Sunday morning service when into the church struggles his wife...drunk our of her skull! Not surprisingly, this causes problems with the elders and they push John to send her away for treatment. But he's a proud and foolish man and soon, without help, the wife is dead...from a suicide. Now John's bitter...so bitter he leaves the ministry and does so angrily. In fact, he's so angry that he's soon living on Skid Row...just another angry bum. So how can John reclaim his life and do something to turn around his awful life? See the film and find out for yourself.

Hayden is, as usual, excellent--which comes as no surprise. As far as the plot goes, it's one that worked well back in the less jaded early 1950s. Today, some might see the whole thing as a bit hokey...which is due, in part, to how jaded we've become over the years. I am NOT trying to be preachy myself here...just pointing out how attitudes have changed over the decades. Overall, I found it to be an interesting and earnest film...one worth seeing if you get a chance.

Sterling Hayden makes a strong impression in this severely dated story about a man's loss of faith, and his reclamation. For a 1951 major studio release, it plays like a Depression Era programmer, although sanitized due to post-early '30s industry censorship.

When his alcoholic wife Peggy Webber commits suicide, Hayden the reverend rebels and thinking God doesn't exist and men of the cloth are hypocrites, he quickly becomes a bum, with director Stuart Heisler depicting a quaint, stereotyped milieu of the Lower Depths filled with bums and flophouses. He's befriended by a charlatain (warm and fuzzy Thomas Mitchell) who's a petty criminal lording over the bums, but at the halfway point, the movie takes a corny turn as New World Mission preacher Ludwig Donath takes Sterling under his wing and he soon falls in love with Donath's blind daughter Viveca Lindfors. The movie turns overly sentimental at this point en route to a contrived, convenient happy ending.

Hayden is quite convincing as a bitter, self-pitying guy with a chip on his shoulder, but turning him into a romantic do-gooder hero is completely unbelievable. Lindfors' acting chops punch across her ultra-sympathetic character.

A well intentioned, inspirational film, "Journey into Light" features a powerful performance by Sterling Hayden in an unlikely role. Tall, rugged, and imposing, Hayden had screen presence and was most memorable as tough guys in such films as "The Asphalt Jungle," "The Killing," and even "Dr. Strangelove." However, as fallen preacher John Burrows, Hayden excels and exposes a reflective depth; his voice and conviction when challenging religious hypocrisy should have put him in contention to play "Elmer Gantry."

An ordained minister, Burrows has an alcoholic wife, and the church elders want her confined to an institution for treatment. However, Burrows refuses, and he resigns from the congregation. However, his wife, already distraught from the deaths of two children and fearful of hindering her husband's ambitions, takes her own life. Devastated by the loss, thus begins Burrow's downward spiral, and he drifts across the country doing manual labor; and, although he does not drink, he ends up on skid row. Wrongly arrested, he meets con artist Gandy, colorfully played by he dependable Thomas Mitchell, and eventually finds shelter and purpose with a street preacher and his daughter Christine, played by Viveca Lindfors; unfortunately, Lindfors does not convince as a blind woman, and she is an uncomfortable match for the formidable Hayden.

Directed by Stuart Heisler from a screenplay by Stephanie Nordli and Irving Shulman, which was based on a story by Anson Bond, "Journey into Light" covers familiar territory, but Hayden's earnest performance sheds fresh light. His mesmerizing speeches when challenging peddlers of religion fixate both his on-screen and off-screen audiences; perhaps Hayden, a stubborn individualist, was expressing his own beliefs and convictions. The generally fine cast, which not only includes Oscar winner Mitchell, but also boasts another Oscar winner, Jane Darwell, and the distinguished H. B. Warner. Although the film teeters at times on the corny and overly sentimental, edging into Frank Capra territory, "Journey into Light" will delight Sterling Hayden fans with its unique role for the tough under-appreciated actor.