Cary Grant in The Bishop's Wife.

The Bishop's Wife is a romantic comedy set at the holidays. It stars Cary Grant as an angel sent to help an unhappy Loretta Young. She is married to David Niven, a recently promoted Bishop who is too preoccupied with raising funds for a large new cathedral to pay his wife and daughter any attention. Actually it is in answer to the young bishop's prayers for guidance that Dudley is sent, but his solutions are different than what the clergyman had in mind.

Christmas themed movies were popular in the late forties. The Bishop's Wife came out around the same time as It's a Wonderful Life and Miracle On 34th Street. Although it was remade in the nineteen-nineties as The Preacher's Wife starring Denzel Washington and Whitney Houston, it has never been a perennial television favorite like those other two movies have become.

Dudley easily charms his way into the Bishop's life, assuming the role of his assistant. Of course things are much easier when you have Heavenly powers at your disposal. In the movies most famous scene the angel and the Bishop's wife go ice-skating. They are suddenly doing incredibly graceful spins and fancy figure eights. I don't know for sure but it really looks like Cary Grant is doing his own skating. Everyone in the household is immediately won over by Dudley, except, of course, for the skeptical Bishop. But, this being a 'Holiday' movie and all, you just know he will come around eventually.

Veteran character actor Monty Wooly has his best role since he played the caustic critic, opposite Bette Davis, in The Man Who Came to Dinner. Here he plays Professor Wutheridge, a free-spirited - if slightly befuddled (not to mention alcoholic) - Classical Historian. Unfortunately he is unable to write his great Roman history because everything important has already been said. Dudley helps him out with some information that only an angel would know. And also gives the old drunk the present of a perpetually self-refilling bottle of Port.

Hollywood legend has it that producer Sam Goldwyn originally planned to have Cary Grant play the Bishop and David Niven play the Angel. Thankfully Cary Grant convinced him to switch the roles. While not a great movie, The Bishop's Wife is a pleasant and charming addition to any holiday movie collection.

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