It kind of says something about Hollywood filmmaking in the 1950’s when a movie has to make up a stupid subplot because it thinks that a MESSAGE FROM GOD is not enough to carry a film. If you were writing a screenplay, what would you think would be more interesting: three children who have been chosen by the Virgin Mary to receive visions, or their atheist friend, Hugo?
For those of you who are sadly not familiar with the historical events in question, be assured the title of this movie is not hyperbole. On May 13th, 1917, three children in the small town of Fatima, Portugal received a visitation from the Virgin Mary, who instructed them among other things to return on the 13th for the next six months. The Lady revealed to them the Three Secrets of Fatima, predicting the Spanish Civil War, World War II and the assassination attempt of Pope John Paul II, as well of the deaths of two youngest children. The children were imprisoned by local authorities, but were eventually let go. On the day of the final appearhersion, the Miracle of the Sun occurred- an amazing event that was witnessed up to thirty miles away. No empirical explanation has ever explained what was happened, probably because there is no explanation. That’s the defination of a miracle.
What has always made this story so fascinating to me are the photographs of the Fatima children and the story of what happened to them afterwards. The three look frightened, as if the fear of Hell had been put into them, which, apparently was what happened. They were deeply effected by a vision of Hell they were given (the First Secret). Furthermore, the two youngest died in the flu pandemic of 1919, just as they had predicted.
This story has always spoken to the most basic part of us- the spiritual level. It says, yes, their something beyond the mundane aspects of our everyday lives, and it is big, big BIG. The movie about the occurrence is not surprisingly a letdown. To say that no movie could capture the experience of being their would be an understatement, but this picture is too much of a Hollywood studio film to come of as being real. For this story to work, someone like Herzog or Bergman needs to direct it, and John Brahm is not in their league.
Even if he was, he would still have a hard time doing much with the stupid subplot involving Hugo (Gilbert Roland), the town atheist who seems to be a lot more popular than he probably would be in that situation. The script resort to creaky Christian movie clichés. Without revealing anything, I think most of us will probably suspect that there is very high probability that Hugo will not be an atheist by the end of the picture.
I am still giving the movie a recommendation on account of the basic story, which is compelling to say the least. I would argue that every human being needs to know the story of Fatima, but not necessarily from this movie.
The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima (1952)