Did You Know?
The production was overseen by a Catholic priest who served as an advisor during the shooting. While the final farewell sequence was being filmed, Bing Crosby and Ingrid Bergman decided to play a prank on him. They asked director Leo McCarey to allow one more take, and, as "Father O'Malley" and "Sister Benedict" said their last goodbyes, they embraced in a passionate kiss, while the offscreen priest-advisor jumped up roaring in protest.
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Bing Crosby's performance as Father O'Malley earned an Oscar nomination for Best Actor, the first time a person received a nomination for playing the same character in two different films (he had been nominated - and won - for Going My Way the previous year).
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At the 1945 Academy Awards, Bing Crosby and Leo McCarey won the Best Actor and Best Director awards for Going My Way. When Ingrid Bergman won the Best Actress award for her role in Gaslight, she told the audience at the awards ceremony, "I'm glad I won, because tomorrow morning, I start shooting the sequel to 'Going My Way' with Bing Crosby and Leo McCarey, and I was afraid that if I didn't have an Oscar, they wouldn't speak to me."
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Although this movie was a sequel to "Going My Way", it was released by a different studio. "Going My Way" had been released by Paramount, to whom Bing Crosby was under contract. "The Bells of St. Mary's" was released by RKO, a studio for which Crosby had never worked.
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This was actually written before "Going My Way" (1944) which was originally intended to be a sequel to "The Bells of St Mary's".
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The song that Ingrid Bergman sings is "Varvindar Friska (Spring Breezes)", a traditional Swedish folk song for Walpurgisnight, which marks the end of winter and the beginning of spring.
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Leo McCarey was inspired to write the original story in tribute to his own aunt and childhood counselor Sister Mary Benedict, one of the Sisters who helped to build the Immaculate Heart Convent in Hollywood and who died in a typhoid fever epidemic.
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Many of the original theatrical posters and lobby cards portrayed Bing Crosby and Ingrid Bergman in non-clerical garb.
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This movie was made before the words "under God" were added to the Pledge of Allegiance, and the children recite the original version without that addition.
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"The Screen Guild Theater" broadcast a 30 minute radio adaptation of the movie on August 26, 1946 with Bing Crosby and Ingrid Bergman reprising their film roles.
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"The Screen Guild Theater" broadcast a 30 minute radio adaptation of the movie on October 6, 1947 with Bing Crosby and Ingrid Bergman again reprising their film roles.
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