Christmas Movie Advent Calendar Day 15: The Bishop's Wife

The No. 11 movie on Disc Dish‘s countdown of the best Christmas movies is another classic, 1947’s The Bishop’s Wife.

The drama tells the delightful story of a bishop (David Niven of The Pink Panther) who loses sight of his priorities at Christmas, including alienating his family and wife (Loretta Young, TV’s The Loretta Young Show). Niven is trying to build a new catherdral and prays for guidance, but when an angel (Cary Grant, North By Northwest) shows up, he doesn’t help with fundraising. And the bishop begins to get the idea that the angel is there to replace him at work and in his family.

Filled with drama, laughs and feel-good Christmas inspiration, The Bishop’s Wife boasts some great lines:

Grant’s angel: “Sometimes angels rush in where fools fear to tread,” and “The only people who grow old were born old to begin with.”

And from James Gleason’s Sylvester: “The main trouble is there are too many people who don’t know where they’re going, and they want to get there too fast.”

The Bisphop’s Wife won an Academy Award for best sound recording and was also nominated for best director, best film editing, best score and the big one, best picture.

The movie is available on DVD from MGM Home Entertainment and distributor 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, and in an MGM Holiday Classics Collection DVD boxed set with two other movies: March of the Wooden Soldiers and Pocketful of Miracles.

Check out the rest of the Disc Dish Christmas Movie Advent Calendar.