For the first few years of blogging, I marked each Christmas with a review of a Christmas-themed film: The Shop Around the Corner, A Christmas Carol, Christmas in Connecticut, The Holly and the Ivy, and so on. Then, somewhere along the way, I fell out of the habit (I am, in some ways, not a creature of habit: I get bored too easily).

But this year, wondering what I should post next—after a slew of tributes—I decided that since Christmas was coming up, and there were several Christmas films I hadn’t yet watched, why not? Therefore, this: a film starring Cary Grant as an angel. Yes, you read that right. Cary Grant as an angel sent down on Earth at Christmastime to help out a beleaguered bishop.

The bishop in question is Henry Brougham (David Niven), a harried man because he’s trying to raise funds for the construction of a new cathedral. As the story progresses, we learn that Henry used to once be a kinder, gentler man, the sort of man who had time to go out for walks and meals with his wife Julia (Loretta Young), who could take time to visit his old parish and listen to the boys’ choir. A man less obsessed with the grandeur of a new cathedral…

A new cathedral, obviously, will cost a pretty penny. For one, there are few people willing to shell out money for a cathedral. As Henry’s secretary Mildred Cassaway (Sara Haden) informs him drily, a certain millionaire Henry had high hopes from has donated $15.

One person who does seem to be quite willing to give a hefty donation is a wealthy widow, Mrs Hamilton (Gladys Cooper): but there is a caveat. She will give Henry a million dollars as donation for the cathedral only if he agrees that there will be a special chapel in memory of her husband. Henry cannot accept that; the cathedral is to be for the glory of God, not for the glorification of the late George Hamilton.

But he needs the money, too. Most desperately.

Meanwhile, a strange someone has been moving through the streets of this particular town. Dudley (Cary Grant), suave and ever-smiling, beams benignly on at a group of children singing carols. He helps a blind man across a street, all the while calmly flicking a hand, which bringing cars to a convenient standstill while the two men cross in front.

He saves a baby in a runaway pram; he bumps into an old gentleman named Professor Wutheridge (Monty Woolley) and insists that they’re old pals. Doesn’t the professor remember him? They had met in Vienna… the professor, who does have a tendency to be a little absent-minded, concedes that yes, it’s possible.

And Dudley watches as Julia Brougham, walking down the street, stops at a shop window and gazes longingly at a hat in the display.

Of course, with all thoughts of money currently revolving round the cathedral that must be financed, the Broughams dare not think of frivolous things like hats. At home, Henry Brougham is driven to prayer: he looks up at the picture of the proposed cathedral that hangs on the wall of his study, and begs God to help.

… and hey presto: Dudley appears in the room.

Of course a bewildered Henry, no matter how religious, cannot bring himself to believe that this man—so obviously flesh and blood—is an angel. Dudley insists he is, and in the midst of this conversation, Julia comes home. Henry has still not quite figured out who his odd new visitor is: whether human or angel, and says the first thing that comes into his head. Dudley is his new assistant. Dudley smiles brightly at Julia, and she is immediately charmed. (She is also obviously very relieved that now that Henry has an assistant to help him out, he will have a little more time for his family).

Before anybody can quite figure him out, Dudley has entrenched himself firmly at the Broughams’. With a winning smile and oodles of charm, it doesn’t take him more than a minute or so to endear himself to everybody he comes up against. The Broughams’ maid, Matilda (Elsa Lanchester), for one, who looks starry-eyed from pretty much the moment Dudley greets her.

Or even Henry’s secretary, Mildred Cassaway, who is stern-faced and unsmiling otherwise, but looks positively radiant in Dudley’s presence.

Most of all, there is Julia. Julia, tense and stressed because of Henry’s near-obsession with the prospective cathedral, has been finding herself increasingly on her own. Henry never has time for her or for their little daughter Debby (Karolyn Grimes), and when she tries to suggest some time together—they should go for a meal to a restaurant they used to frequent at one time, which they haven’t visited in eons—Henry agrees, but it later transpires that he’d forgotten he had a meeting that clashes with this lunch date…

Dudley, though, swiftly takes Julia under his wing (pun intended, though Dudley insists to Henry that he is an angel, even if he has no wings). He takes Julia to that restaurant—where some acquaintances of hers look suitably scandalized at the sight of Julia dining with a strange man. Until Dudley goes over, charms the women, and gets them to join Julia and him.

He goes, too, with Julia to Professor Wutheridge’s place, where he discusses history (and encourages the professor to finally begin writing the book he’s been meaning to start for the past several decades). He also quietly works a little bit of magic on the professor’s bottle of sherry, so that it never gets empty…

Little Debby finds that Dudley is not just a very good storyteller, he is also able to get the neighbourhood boys to include her in their snowball fights. Of course, unknown to everybody, including Debby and the boys, there’s a little bit of magic involved here too.

Dudley came to Henry in response to Henry’s prayer. But is he really helping Henry? Or is he too busy helping out everybody besides Henry? Julia, Debby, Miss Cassaway, Matilda, the professor. Even a random cab-driver: all of them have Dudley to thank for bringing some light into their lives, in some way or the other. But Henry? Henry is still running from pillar to post, trying to collect funds for the cathedral, trying to reason with Mrs Hamilton.

And, watching Julia smiling and laughing as she goes about with Dudley, growing jealous.

What I liked about this film (there isn’t anything I didn’t like):

The message of it. On the surface of it, The Bishop’s Wife may seem like a sweet, feel-good film about a charismatic angel coming into a set of lives and changing them for the better—not really with magic (Dudley’s magic is all mostly quite minor)—but by being gentle and kind, but putting people first, by being open to listening. More than that, it is also a film about getting our priorities right, about understanding what Christmas is really all about. Not gifts and gaiety and booze-fuelled merriment, but a genuine sense of giving. Of seeing those who are in need, and fulfilling that need. That grand cathedral does not glorify God as much as giving to the needy does.

But there is more, too. Very obviously, there are Dudley and Julia and Henry. Is Henry being over-suspicious, imagining a relationship where there is none? Dudley, by his own admission, does feel something for Julia that he, as an angel, is not supposed to feel for any human being. But how about Julia: when she looks so warmly at Dudley, when she’s clearly enjoying his company—what does that mean? Can Henry and Julia (not by means in a bad marriage) revive the happiness they once knew through the intervention of Dudley? Is Dudley really here to only help Henry with the financing of the cathedral, or is his aim something beyond?

The cast is good; David Niven and Cary Grant are especially, I think, well-cast. But when it came to Cary Grant as Dudley, I did wonder… how would this story have panned out if Dudley was not this handsome, charismatic man? All through The Bishop’s Wife, there are women—Julia, Matilda, Mildred Cassaway, Mrs Hamilton, the ladies at the restaurant—who are quite obviously completely bowled over by Dudley. Yes, he is charming; but would another actor, one not quite so dashing, have had the same effect? Are Dudley’s looks part of his charm (and that charm is instrumental, in a big way, in him managing the ‘miracles’ he does)?

A somewhat offbeat film, in the sense that it takes an unusual route to get to its message. But the message is there, and it is, in my view, the message Christmas does stand for.

Merry Christmas, everybody who’s celebrating. And, to all of us across the world, peace and joy.