The Left Hand of God (1955)

Director:

Edward Dmytryk

Writers:

Alfred Hayes (screenplay)
William E. Barrett (novel)

Release Date:

14 November 1955 (West Germany)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

Bogart...In a new type of action role!

Plot:

At a Catholic mission in China, long-awaited "Father O'Shea" proves to be a tough guy, disturbingly attractive to mission nurse Anne.

Plot Keywords:

China | Catholic | Nurse | Assumed Identity | Stolen Identity

Cast

Humphrey Bogart	...	James 'Jim' Carmody
Gene Tierney	...	Anne 'Scotty' Scott
Lee J. Cobb	...	Mieh Yang
Agnes Moorehead	...	Beryl Sigman
E.G. Marshall	...	Dr. David Sigman
Jean Porter	...	Mary Yin
Carl Benton Reid	...	Father Cornelius (bishop's envoy)
Victor Sen Yung	...	John Wong (church sexton)
Philip Ahn	...	Jan Teng (Buddhist priest)
Benson Fong	...	Chun Tien (husband of dying woman)

Runtime:

87 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.55 : 1

Sound Mix:

4-Track Stereo (Western Electric Recording) (magnetic prints) | Mono (Western Electric Recording) (optical prints)

Certification:

USA:Approved (certificate #17452) | West Germany:12 (f) | UK:A (passed with cuts) | Finland:S | Sweden:15

Company:

Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

Quotes:

Dr. David Sigman: [of prostitutes] Don't tell me the Church gives up on 'em, father! Medicine doesn't give up...
Jim Carmody: When medicine reaches a point where it never has to walk hopelessly away from a case, then you can criticize the Church because it left some... spiritual illness uncured.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Bogart: The Untold Story (1996) (TV)

Soundtrack:

A LOAF OF BREAD

Surviving as a Padre

Interesting that The Left Hand of God should be directed by Edward Dmytryk one of the famed Hollywood 10 and the only one to recant and admit his Communist Party involvement so he could beat the blacklist and resume work. Dmytryk like Bogart in the film pretended he was something he wasn't and submitted himself for a kind of absolution.

Flier James Carmody is shot down while flying the hump in Kuomintang China during the Thirties and he's shot down in an isolated area where Chiang Kai-shek's writ doesn't run. He gets drafted into warlord Lee J. Cobb's army and then deserts, using the disguise of a recently deceased priest who got himself deceased by one of Cobb's men.

Like William Holden in Bridge Over the River Kwai, Carmody played by Bogart is forced by circumstance to keep up the appearance. He wins over a lot of the villagers where the deceased priest was headed for. And he also wins over missionary lady Gene Tierney. And he becomes involved in a rather dubious miracle that saves the village.

The key here is that Bogart is a lapsed Catholic himself in the film. Otherwise the whole thing would have no meaning whatsoever. Even so, I'm still dubious myself about Bogart's attitude when all's said and done.

Plot elements can be found as I said in The Bridge on the River Kwai and later on it was played for comedy in a military setting when Glenn Ford pretended he was a general in Imitation General in an obscure corner of the European theater in World War II.

Bogey fans will consider this film a must, others can take or leave it.