The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima
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| The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima | |
|---|---|
 VHS cover |
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| Directed by | John Brahm |
| Produced by | Bryan Foy |
| Written by | James O'Hanlon Crane Wilbur |
| Starring | Susan Whitney Sherry Jackson |
| Music by | Max Steiner |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
| Release date(s) | August 20, 1952 U.S. release |
| Running time | 102 min |
| Language | English |
| IMDb profile | |
The Miracle Of Our Lady Of Fatima is a feature film made in 1952.
It was promoted as a fact-based treatment of the events surrounding the apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima in 1917.
It starred Gilbert Roland as a fictional character named Hugo, a kindly but agnostic friend of the three children, who rediscovered his faith in God through the Solar Miracle of Fatima. It is on DVD as of April 4, 2006.
[edit] Story
It is 1917, and Portugal is feeling the aftereffects of a storm of anti-religious sentiment and the violent overthrow of the government by socialist forces. Many church fathers are jailed, and all are fingerprinted, photographed and registered as (possible) criminals. The rural town of Fatima is small enough to have escaped much of this persecution; their church remains open, and most of the people are very devout.
Watching their flocks and playing in a field outside town on May 15 (the actual date of the first apparition was May 13), Lucia dos Santos and her cousins Jacinta and Francisco Marto see a flash of light and think it is going to rain. Gathering their sheep together and heading for home, they run straight into an unusual "cloud of light" surrounding a little tree on which a lady stands. Speaking slowly and gently, the lady asks them to return on the 13th of each month and to offer their sufferings to God for the salvation of sinners. She entreats them to say the Rosary for world peace. Later, they encounter their agnostic friend Hugo who tells them it is best not to reveal the vision to anyone else, but of course on returning home Jacinta immediately divulges her sightings.
Jacinta and Francisco's parents believe, but Lucia's mother reacts with disgust and subjects her daughter to emotional and physical abuse. She forbids Lucia to return to the Cova, but Lucia does so, and is told that her cousins will die and go to heaven "soon", while she will live a long life in holy service. The church father suggests the visions might be from Satan. Kidnapped by provincial administrator Arturo Santos, the children are threatened with death if they don't change their story. Trying to frighten them, he has first Jacinta, then Francisco dragged into another room. Jacinta's terrified screams convince Lucia that her cousins are dead, but she refuses to deny what she's seen. Warning her that she's about to experience "the full treatment", Santos reunites her with her cousins, who are very much alive, then throws them all in jail. There they find Hugo, who stands by them as they convince all the prisoners to join in the Rosary. Unable to find any prosecutable evidence, Arturo frees the children, who find that the entire population of Fatima has been standing outside waiting for them.
On October 13, when the lady promised "a sign that will make them believe," about forty thousand people arrive, waiting through a torrential downpour. At precisely noon the clouds part and the sun shines brightly upon all the people -- then the sun shifts through a rainbow of colours and appears to drop toward the ground. Many people panic, some pray or watch calmly, and a few disabled people are healed. As the sun returns to normal we see Hugo standing in the middle of the kneeling crowd, his hat still on. Removing it, he says "Only the fool sayeth there is no God." A short epilogue shows the huge basilica where the tree once stood. Inside, Lucia is a nun praying before the tomb where her cousins are buried.
[edit] Analysis
Much of the movie seems derivative of 1943's The Song of Bernadette starring Jennifer Jones, especially a scene in which Lucia goes to her mother during the night and tearfully promises she won't visit the site of the visions anymore. An almost identical scene occurs close to the beginning of The Song Of Bernadette, and there are other similarities. As Bernadette Soubirous and the Fatima children came from similar, rural, sheep herding backgrounds, there were of course coincidental resemblences in their lives and experiences.
The movie presents the basic story of the visions correctly, but errs in many significant ways - starting right at the beginning, when it claims the first vision occurred on May 15, 1917, rather than May 13. This change was made simply in order to depict the piety of the townspeople by showing crowds streaming out of Sunday morning Mass. In addition, the depiction of Communist control of the Portuguese government and authority over the Catholic Church is exaggerated, in order to illustrate the strong anti-Communist message which Sister Lucia reported receiving from the Blessed Mother. Portugal's real anti-clerical authorities at the time were not Communists, but freethinkers and Masons.
The portrayal of Lucia's father as a weak, cowardly alcoholic and her mother as strong-willed to the point of domineering is typical of Catholic folk hagiography on Marian visionaries, which usually feature strong women and weak or misguided men. Here, it is probably based on the fact that Lucia's father was fond of gambling and did not attend church in Fatima but in a parish several miles away -- so some might have believed he did not go at all. In contrast, the portrayal of Lucia's mother has been softened. Lucia reports in her memoirs that her mother beat her repeatedly, and even after witnessing the alleged solar miracle never did fully believe in the visitations.
Sherry Jackson's portrayal of Jacinta Marto as an emotionally volatile and sensitive child was consistent with contemporary accounts, including interviews with Jacinta's mother.
Angela Clarke, who played Lucia's mother, also played the Lady, and lent her distinctive voice to a crowd scene.
