Review of Going My Way

Fantasy and science-fiction before the 1950’s, both on the page and on the screen, was not particularly noted for its sophistication. For this reason, 1944’s “Going My Way” is all the more impressive, due to its psychological depth and restrained tone, opting for social commentary over swords and sorcery, little green men or giant rampaging monsters. It rightly remained the only science-fiction/fantasy film until 2003’s “Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” to ever win a best picture academy award and it snagged six other Oscars as well. It had a rare appeal to a conservative moral majority who accepted the satirical, whimsical tone at face value and a progressive minority which appreciated its studied critique of middle-class wish-fulfillment.

It’s a credit to director Leo McCarey’s multi-layered ambiguity and labyrinthine subtleties that critics today still debate whether it should be classified as sci-fi or fantasy. (Some even go so far as to question whether it should be considered a genre film at all!) The sticking point seems to hinge upon the film’s surreal utopian setting and whether it should be interpreted as a parallel universe or merely a dream, with evidence pointing to the latter.

I’m getting a little ahead of myself, so I’ll stop and fill in the plot summary for those who haven’t yet seen the film:

Father O’Malley (Bing Crosby), a confused, but generally good-natured idealist, wanders into a parallel universe (or enters into a dream) in which he has been appointed the youthful new priest of a fantastical utopian parish. He negotiates a friendly rivalry with the former padre, the curmudgeonly Father Fitzgerald, while encountering several humorously outrageous inversions of real world woes: a street gang that becomes a charitable choir, a vicious landlord who transforms into a noble military volunteer and a runaway prostitute turned charming fiancé, etc. As the grip of the fantasy world tightens, it moves further from reality, occasionally spinning off into musical numbers.

“Going My Way” owes much of its basic format to “Alice in Wonderland” and “The Wizard of Oz” (which has since overtaken the other film in stature), with its story of a naïve protagonist who becomes lost in a wonderland that is both exciting and alien. However, McCarey’s film shies away from the Technicolor excess of “The Wizard of Oz” film and the hallucinogenic chaos of “Alice in Wonderland” in favor of an uncanny mirror world that is all the more unsettling because it is so deeply grounded in our own. While other auteurs dabbled in dystopic shadow-worlds (consider the contemporaneous film noirs), McCarey takes us into quite the reverse: a parallel universe of impossibly glaring light. It is a light whose satiric intensity is a searing indictment of 1940’s society with its legislated morality, war propaganda, stifling self-censorship, denial of social problems and lack of universal civil rights.

What makes “Going My Way” even more unusual than flight-of-fancy odysseys made before and since is the lack of a firm framing device to anchor O’Malley’s story. McCarey doesn’t give us the Kansas farm and deus ex tornado of “The Wizard of Oz” or the sleepy hillside and endless rabbit-hole of “Alice” nor even (explicitly) the usual setup of a hospital patient fading in and out of an uneasy dream-state. O’Malley is thrust into his fantasy world without context, leaving the viewers to piece together the truth from the over-the-top morality, delirious cheeriness and subtler clues. Even more disturbing is O’Malley’s attitude towards the thinly-masked fiction. Rather than embarking on the usual episodic journey home (learning life lessons along the way) he enthusiastically accepts the lie, clearly preferring the hollow wish-fulfillment to the abrasive complications of reality. His inability to struggle out from the dream dooms him to repeat the fantasy scenario indefinitely, as hinted by the devastating final scene in which O’Malley is reassigned to a new parish with an identical description and situation.

It’s easy to argue that the edgy choice to forgo a framing device was merely a matter of necessity. The Hays Office would never have allowed McCarey to get away with his daring social critique if he’d spelled out his intentions. Still, I can’t help wondering whether Bing Crosby’s superlative star power might have prevented the Hollywood blacklist if he’d openly displayed his cynicism towards the moral majority.

Personally, I think the absent frame is more than just a fear of production code reprisal. It’s an artistic choice that enhances the puzzle-box structure of the film and its underlying message: we are a prisoner of the lies we live. The most reasonable interpretations [mild SPOILERS until end of paragraph] is that O’Malley is a dying patient, a comatose member of the white male Christian hegemony whose feverish brain is haplessly trying to assemble a version of heaven that fits his short-sighted prejudices and egotistical preoccupations. Bing Crosby’s perpetual dopey grin is perhaps the clearest evidence of his medicated state while the church fire near the end of the film appears to be a clear stand-in for the “burning” fever that threatens to destroy his fantasy world.

McCarey is ruthless in laying bare O’Malley’s psychology. Evidence of probable childhood abuse comes in the guise of Father Fitzgerald, an explicit father figure who wields a cane (kept largely tame in the mirror world), refuses to pass the torch to O’Malley and resists the young man’s attempts at progress. A short scene involving Fitzgerald’s drinking habit and references to an absent maternal figure, hint at the household conditions of O’Malley’s real world youth.

Meanwhile, a fixation with a former flame reveals a history of rejection while a flirtatious runaway exposes O’Malley’s frustrated sexual preoccupation. The material is heavily sublimated, with O’Malley displacing his sexual desires into music and song and projecting himself as a priest (insights into his past, including much camaraderie with an even less likely priest suggest that he is really nothing of the sort) as a rationalization for his impotence. One particularly memorable example of this repression at work is when O’Malley forces an attractive aspiring nightclub performer to sing without moving anything below the neck (even to sway or snap!).

Most scathing of all is the depiction of O’Malley’s pathetic ego, which McCarey arguably takes a little too far. Our “hero” not only imagines himself to be a literal messiah figure, bringing salvation to a community in crisis, but also a rock star (Bing Crosby, who had 383 top-30 hits, was the 1940’s equivalent) whose talent is a financial success. He is admired by all the boys in the local gang (an idea so out of place that it sends up red flags about a friendless, bullied past) and by women of every age and background.

The harmful aspect of this “idealized” wish fulfillment is evident in the regressive values and strict homogeny that O’Malley simulates in his dream world. Notice the lack of racial minorities. Notice how women bend to the will of the male cast members, with marriage offered as the only acceptable choice. Listen to the constant refrain that righteousness can be achieved only through the Catholic church, which demands regular attendance and frequent donations. One can hardly overlook the hypocrisy of O’Malley’s self-serving justice, in which the police allow him to gorge on stolen goods while violently pursuing others who commit identical crimes, or even infractions as minor as vagrancy.

It’s hard for modern viewers to imagine that the mainstream critics and audience of 1944 were largely blind to the anti-establishment subtext of “Going My Way.” Yet the truth is that its Best Picture victory was as much a matter of unwitting conservatives sharing in O’Malley’s fantasy without perceiving its terrible ironies as it was liberals overjoyed to see a film cut through the choking miasma of bourgeois contentment. Today, the film deserves to be openly acknowledged in its proper place: as a film that provocatively challenges viewers to reject escapism, isolationism and solipsism and to face their personal demons with honesty. It asks us to turn back from O’Malley’s path towards the false utopia of whitewashed paternal theocracy and to engage with the complicated moral ambiguities and vibrant multiculturalism of the modern life.

Walrus Rating: 2.5