BEFORE: OK, let's deal with it, this is a SHORT film, just 37 minutes long, and already this year I've watched two other short films (under 40 min.) and one of them I counted in the tally ("Valerie") and the other one I did NOT ("Strange Way of Life"). It's nothing to do with the subject matter, I assure you, I just felt the doc about Ms. Perrine was worthy of being counted, especially here during the "Summer of Superman". Look, I could easily just make a codicil to the rule about short films not counting and say that they don't count, unless they're documentaries - that's an OK compromise, I suppose.
But the real truth, as I mentioned yesterday, is that I'm trying to get through July and land a very special film on an anniversary of sorts, even if it's the anniversary of someone's passing - I admire that person, and I want to pay tribute however I can. To get there on the right day, I have to double up, and so I'm watching two films today, one short film and one longer one. However, at the same time I need to be conscious of which film, exactly, will land as #5,100. That's important to me, too, to get the "right" film on the century mark. So I'm counting today's short in the tally so the numbers will add up where I want them to, that's really the long and the short of it.
I can, of course, adjust things at the end of the year if need be. If I should fall one film short of 300 for the year, I can go back and count "Strange Way of Life" and just re-number all the films after it, that would be a thing I can do. And if I have one film too many, I can come back HERE and just un-number today's film (there's precedent for that, too, like the Woodstock '99 doc) and then things will line up again and we'll be as right as rain. I've got options, that's my point. And if Pedro Pascal should end up not making the year-end countdown because I didn't count "Strange Way of Life" and ALSO couldn't fit "Fantastic Four: First Steps" in anywhere, well, I'll be happy to apologize to him in person, just send him my way.
Elvis Presley carries over from "Killing John Lennon" via archive footage. Speaking of that "Summer of Superman", I did sneak out on Saturday night and go to the theater on my day off, as I happened to know a certain movie that was playing there for the college's faculty and staff. Well, I'm staff, even if I'm still a temp, so I felt it was my right. Now you know the drill, I'm going to sit on the review until I can link to it, which in this case is about two or three days AFTER the Doc Block ends. So we've got that waiting for us on the other side.
THE PLOT: Dolores Hart left a successful Hollywood acting career to become a nun. A true story.
AFTER: For more backstage behind-the-scenes fun, I can explain why this film ended up here, since the IMDB credits are often incomplete, for safety's sake this one had to be programmed between two other films where I KNEW I would see Mr. Elvis Presley. He's since turned up in a number of other films in the Doc Block unexpectedly, but you know, that's Elvis for you - he's already been in so many docs this time around that I'm questioning whether he might still be alive and making movies somewhere. But I could for sure confirm he was in yesterday's doc and for sure I know he's in tomorrow's, so this is where this movie landed.
I wasn't even thinking about the title of this one, and putting it next to a film about John Lennon, I kind of see a similarity to Lennon being misquoted as saying that "The Beatles were bigger than God". it's not what he said, plus it wouldn't even work as an equation, Beatles greater than God, God greater than Elvis. Everyone is supposedly equal in the eyes of God - ah, but does that included God himself? Or does it just pertain to mortals? Furthermore, if God can do anything, can he make a rock so big that he himself can't lift it? There's a paradox in there somewhere, not a pair of docs.
But let's get to tonight's short, which is a bit, umm, short on details about its subject matter, which is understandable because it can't spend a lot of time on anything and still be a short film. We know Dolores Hart was an actress in the 1960's she co-starred in "Where the Boys Are" with Connie Francis, who just passed away a few days ago at the age of 87. I think most people today, at least those who knew who she was, were surprised to find out she was still alive. But that happens sometimes.
Dolores Hart had just a few movie credits to her name, some TV work as well, but one of those films was "Loving You" with Elvis Presley. (One of these days TCM will have an Elvis marathon and I'll try to watch them all, start to finish, I've never really appreciated Elvis as an actor, maybe I'm missing something...). Ms. Hart was also in the Elvis film "King Creole", and went on to star in "Francis of Assisi" and "Come Fly with Me" in addition to "Where the Boys Are". Then she kind of disappeared, and it was decades later before anyone learned that at some point, she had left the movie business and become a nun. Maybe she took away more from playing St. Clare on screen than anyone realized.
While on a promo tour for "Come Fly with Me", she took a car ride from NYC to the abbey she once visited in Connecticut, and decided to stay, taking her vows in 1970. She left a potentially lucrative film career, as well as a side-gig babysitting for Karl Malden's kids, to work at the abbey, which does stage a musical performance every year in it's community of (get this) Bethlehem, CT. Seems about right. She worked her way up to prioress, which I think is the head nun in charge, something like a Mother Superior, if I remember by catechism.
She was engaged to an architect in L.A. at one point, and she left that behind, too - I personally don't understand the calling some people have to become priests and nuns, because I never saw that for myself, or heard whatever it is they hear. But I had a calling, too, which started some time after I read George Lucas's autobiography, so yeah, I kind of get it. I've also had to leave some things behind, really who hasn't had to burn a few bridges in life and rebuild everything from the ground up? That architect visits her at the abbey from time to time, I don't know what he thinks is going to happen, but you know, it might be time for him to move on with his life.
It's probably a very busy, but also quiet lifestyle - working at the abbey, which has some farm animals, like lambs and one llama - and of course there are eight prayer sessions a day. The film doesn't just focus on Dolores (now known as Sister Dolores, or Prioress Dolores) the documentary makers interviewed some other nuns at the same abbey - so I wonder if that was always the plan, to include several nuns there and they found Dolores Hart by accident, or if the other interviews were a cover just to get the one they wanted. How long did they speak to her before they started asking about Elvis? You know, the heartthrob that she outlived by about 48 years and counting? (Hey, Elvis's 50 year death anniversary hits in 2027, I'll have to come up with something for that...)
Anyway, when I programmed this into the chain, I still had my career as an office manager for animation studios, and since then, I've given up that line of work so I could focus on more working theatrical events at a movie theater. So yeah, I get it, if there's too much stress in your life or you no longer feel like you fit in doing what you're doing, a change may be necessary. A "change of habit", to reference the title another Elvis film, one in which Mary Tyler Moore played a nun. I wonder if Elvis knew about Dolores Hart being a nun at that point.
Really, we'll also never know how much longer she would have worked in movies, had she stuck around Hollywood. Maybe the movie studios would have stopped casting her when she turned 30, we'll never know. Perhaps she ended up making the right move at the right time, that's nobody's business but her own. Sometimes when your career path gets blocked, you've got to find a new one.
I hope this makes up for me giving any time at all to John Lennon's killer. I just wanted to right another movie sin if I could.
Directed by Rebecca Cammisa
Also starring Dolores Hart, Don Robinson, with archive footage of Warren Beatty (last seen in "Ali & Cavett: The Tale of the Tapes"), Marlon Brando (last seen in "Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story").
RATING: 5 out of 10 follow-up questions that were never asked after that one nun talked about sex stuff. I mean, I know they're technically "married to Jesus" but maybe some more details on what that really means?
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