St. Benny the Dip

In his characteristically bemused and half-faltering voice, Roland Young reads the majestic opening of Genesis to a handful of charity cases in a nobly spacious but dilapidated old building still remembered for its better days. He and his comrades, the script reminds us, are just three people in a city of eight million, and the city is visually portrayed in towering terms of expressionism; but the eccentric trio still nurses hopes of turning the game in their favor. It turns out that Man proposes, but God disposes. A wise priest is on hand waxing philosophical and poetic about the situation, and in addition along comes a woman-- Nina Foch-- whose own definition not about fame (which she seized at but lost) or about globetrotting or getting rich quick but about a successful domestic life. A comedic situation arises from the contrasting lures of a quiet, productive lifestyle versus an independent and unrestrained one. Dick Haymes sings an unexpectedly bluesy hymn in one of his last movie roles, and fellow actors Roland Young and Freddie Bartholomew are winding up their big-screen careers as well, adding unintentionally and retroactively to the movie's elegiac quality.