Where Angels Go Trouble Follows!

Columbia and Roz Russell had a huge hit in Trouble With Angels and this film is the sequel. While Roz Russell's peers had to do horror films to stay in the public eye, Roz -along with Kate Hepburn and Lucille Ball-remained top of he bill movie stars. Ms. Russell repeats her role as Mother Superior and this film is cast with a lot of great character actors including Mary Wickes and Milton Berle. I am pleased this film casts the Catholic religion in a positive light, and why not? Ms. Russell was a devout Church going Catholic.

Ms.Russell is likely the most glaring example of a major star and actress that never won an Oscar.

Stella Stevens appears as a young modern thinking nun sometimes at odds with Mother Superior. Ms. Stevens is to me the most under appreciated star I have ever seen pass thru Hollywood with a gallery of great performances where she played Hookers, Tramps, Drug Addicts and also delightful in comedy such as this one and a two movies with Dean Martin, The Silencers and How To Save A Marriage and Ruin Your Life. A lovely actress, who somehow never reached the true levels of super-stardom Ms. Stevens deserved and I feel earned. I suggest film students study Stevens work in Synanon, The Silencers, The Ballad of Cable Hogue, The Nutty Professor, The Poisedon Adventure, et al. A great actress who let her work speak for itself. In Stevens' heyday Stella Stevens worked with Gene Hackman, Roz Russell, Glenn Ford, Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Elvis Presley, Jeffrey Hunter, and film makers such as Hal Wallis, and Sam Peckinpah. I wish Stella Stevens had worked with Billy Wilder who would have surely gotten an Oscar nomination for this fine Actress.

I was pleasantly surprised that this movie still holds charm after all these years. I originally saw it when I was much younger, and the only things I remembered were the railroad tracks and the song that is played throughout the film. After watching it with a more mature film-viewing mind, it's still worthwhile. Extremely campy. Clearly dated, but very illuminating. The subject matter is probably more relevant if you have religious leanings, although they aren't required. And oddly, I felt like the song was very Monkees-esquire, but never knew that it had a direct connection. Search it out for a trippy, lovey time in 1968.

I wonder if the dance sequence was an inspiration for Austin Powers?

In the first film of this series The Trouble With Angels the main focus of the film was on the students in particular Hayley Mills and the trouble she got into, always vexing Mother Superior Rosalind Russell. In Where Angels Go Trouble Follows the accent is on the nuns and in particular the generational dispute between Rosalind Russell and new nun on the faculty, Stella Stevens.

It's the same kind of fun that the previous film was. The girls at the Catholic Academy are all revved up by Stella Stevens to attend an interfaith youth rally cross country in California. She together with Bishop Arthur Godfrey persuade Rosalind Russell to take 3000 mile cross country bus trip with a picked group of the girls. One of them, Barbara Hunter gets to go via her dad William Lundigan donating the bus for the trip.

In fact Hunter and Susan Saint James are the troublesome pair of girls who take Hayley Mills's place in vexing Russell. Funniest scene is when after being ordered to wash the bus bumper to bumper by Russell, the two of them take the bus into a car wash they break into and try to use. Of course the two geniuses forget to close the bus windows before putting it through the wash.

Russell got to work with two of her former fellow contract players at MGM in this film. Robert Taylor plays the owner of a boys summer camp ranch and Van Johnson is a priest and head of a Catholic Boys School. Johnson and she never worked together at MGM and she and Taylor whom she said started the exact same day for Louis B. Mayer were both supporting players in a film West Point Of The Air and did not work together again until Where Angels Go Trouble Follows.

Dolores Sutton, Mary Wickes, and Binnie Barnes were all members of the convent in the previous film and repeat their roles here. Milton Berle is on hand as a movie director of a western on to whose set the bus stumbles on during an 'Indian' attack. With that eyepatch for affect and Berle makes you know it's for affect, it either suggests a spoof of John Ford or Raoul Walsh.

I liked the film because without condescension it shows the generational conflict between the two protagonists, Russell and Stevens. Neither is made to be a fool, both had very good points on their side.

Though it's set in the culture of the Sixties, the humor and wisdom in Where Angels Go Trouble Follows is timeless and will still be funny generations from now.

My family and I always loved this movie. Since I am a Catholic school survivor I can relate to it. I was 7 years old when I first saw it at the drive in (remember drive ins?) and it always brings back good memories.

A clean wholesome movie and funny too! Whatever happened to clean and wholesome movies? Parts of this movie were filmed in Ambler Pennsylvania and the Castle in the movie is still there and it hasn't changed at all.

The plot of the movie was reflective of the times and the times represented change and the acceptance of change. This change was interwoven throughout the movie in the interactions and conflicting views between the modern sister George (Stella Stevens) and the old fashioned and reserved mother superior (Rosalind Russell). The moral of the story is: "A cloister can be a place but it can also be a state of mind."

Boyce and Hart (who wrote many hit songs for the Monkees) supplied the musical score which provided the groovy beat of the movie.

I loved Susan St James in this movie. She was such a bright young actress at the time. I loved the scene where she was caught riding on top of the bus. That scene was shot on a farm near my hometown.

I also appreciated the views of the Philadelphia art museum as well as city hall along with the center of the Ambler Pennsylvania town. Those views have changed over the years.

Those who were sent through the Catholic School system (voluntarily or not)will get a kick out of this movie.

You can buy the movie on Ebay and I think that a DVD version has been released.

This is another of those cases when I have seen the sequel before I saw the original, and from what I have seen this is another in those rare cases in which the sequel is better than the original. This film worked for me on two levels. On one level it was a pretty decent story about Marvel Ann (who was more of a peripheral character in the original) and how she tries to cope with her feelings about being a sort of ugly duckling. This is especially true in her scenes with her more attractive best friend Rosabelle (played by a very young Susan Saint James in her pre-"MacMillan and Wife" days). Also, the other main story that this film covers is the relationship between Reverend Mother (again played by Rosalind Russell) and Sister George (played by Stella Stevens). The relationship between those two is a reflection of what was going on in the Catholic church during the mid to late 1960's as this film came out a few years after Vatican II. Reverend Mother represents the old church and Sister George represents the younger face of Catholicism that is trying to change with the times. This is a wonderful film that really works as both a comedy and a drama.