Where Angels Go Trouble Follows! (1968) Reviews

• Trippy fun

  jdollak2005-10-17

  I was pleasantly surprised that this movie still holds charm after all these years. I originally saw it when I was much younger, and the only things I remembered were the railroad tracks and the song that is played throughout the film. After watching it with a more mature film-viewing mind, it's still worthwhile. Extremely campy. Clearly dated, but very illuminating. The subject matter is probably more relevant if you have religious leanings, although they aren't required. And oddly, I felt like the song was very Monkees-esquire, but never knew that it had a direct connection. Search it out for a trippy, lovey time in 1968. I wonder if the dance sequence was an inspiration for Austin Powers?

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• Good Clean Fun!

  jsfmt992004-06-04

  My family and I always loved this movie. Since I am a Catholic school survivor I can relate to it. I was 7 years old when I first saw it at the drive in (remember drive ins?) and it always brings back good memories. A clean wholesome movie and funny too! Whatever happened to clean and wholesome movies? Parts of this movie were filmed in Ambler Pennsylvania and the Castle in the movie is still there and it hasn't changed at all. The plot of the movie was reflective of the times and the times represented change and the acceptance of change. This change was interwoven throughout the movie in the interactions and conflicting views between the modern sister George (Stella Stevens) and the old fashioned and reserved mother superior (Rosalind Russell). The moral of the story is: "A cloister can be a place but it can also be a state of mind." Boyce and Hart (who wrote many hit songs for the Monkees) supplied the musical score which provided the groovy beat of the movie. I loved Susan St James in this movie. She was such a bright young actress at the time. I loved the scene where she was caught riding on top of the bus. That scene was shot on a farm near my hometown. I also appreciated the views of the Philadelphia art museum as well as city hall along with the center of the Ambler Pennsylvania town. Those views have changed over the years. Those who were sent through the Catholic School system (voluntarily or not)will get a kick out of this movie. You can buy the movie on Ebay and I think that a DVD version has been released.

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• Total Groovy Movie!

  dgordon-12002-02-18

  This was the sequel to "The Trouble with Angels", which was an excellent mid-'60s teen movie. To some, "Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows" was a disappointing follow-up. To me, I have always liked both very much, but I always preferred this one a little more out of the two. The reason being, it reflects the late '60s so much, it's so dated and borderline campy. This is what is appealing about the movie. The plotline is basic: a cross country trek to a religious convention, and all of the trials and tribulations the girls go through while they are on route. What 'makes' this movie is Stella Stevens as the hip & groovy liberated Nun that pickets against "the man", stands up to bikers, and later finds out what role she plays is in her students life. If you go in expecting this movie to be like the original, then you are setting yourself up for a big disappointment. If you liked other late '60s movies like "How Sweet It Is", "Impossible Years","Divorce, American Style", "Yours, Mine, and Ours" and "The Love God?", then you will definitely enjoy this late '60s groovy movie.

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• The Girls Of Saint Francis

  bkoganbing2008-11-23

  In the first film of this series The Trouble With Angels the main focus of the film was on the students in particular Hayley Mills and the trouble she got into, always vexing Mother Superior Rosalind Russell. In Where Angels Go Trouble Follows the accent is on the nuns and in particular the generational dispute between Rosalind Russell and new nun on the faculty, Stella Stevens. It's the same kind of fun that the previous film was. The girls at the Catholic Academy are all revved up by Stella Stevens to attend an interfaith youth rally cross country in California. She together with Bishop Arthur Godfrey persuade Rosalind Russell to take 3000 mile cross country bus trip with a picked group of the girls. One of them, Barbara Hunter gets to go via her dad William Lundigan donating the bus for the trip. In fact Hunter and Susan Saint James are the troublesome pair of girls who take Hayley Mills's place in vexing Russell. Funniest scene is when after being ordered to wash the bus bumper to bumper by Russell, the two of them take the bus into a car wash they break into and try to use. Of course the two geniuses forget to close the bus windows before putting it through the wash. Russell got to work with two of her former fellow contract players at MGM in this film. Robert Taylor plays the owner of a boys summer camp ranch and Van Johnson is a priest and head of a Catholic Boys School. Johnson and she never worked together at MGM and she and Taylor whom she said started the exact same day for Louis B. Mayer were both supporting players in a film West Point Of The Air and did not work together again until Where Angels Go Trouble Follows. Dolores Sutton, Mary Wickes, and Binnie Barnes were all members of the convent in the previous film and repeat their roles here. Milton Berle is on hand as a movie director of a western on to whose set the bus stumbles on during an 'Indian' attack. With that eyepatch for affect and Berle makes you know it's for affect, it either suggests a spoof of John Ford or Raoul Walsh. I liked the film because without condescension it shows the generational conflict between the two protagonists, Russell and Stevens. Neither is made to be a fool, both had very good points on their side. Though it's set in the culture of the Sixties, the humor and wisdom in Where Angels Go Trouble Follows is timeless and will still be funny generations from now.

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• Seriously weird

  film_ho2006-03-16

  Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows, the sequel to The Trouble with Angels, is in sad need of a skilled director like Ida Lupino at the helm. This is a seriously weird movie. It looked as if halfway through the making of the sequel, someone decided the film needed "relevant" elements. "Relevant" always turns out to look hopelessly dated a generation later. It begins with hip Sister George (I wonder if this was an in joke about The Killing of Sister George, a contemporary play about lesbians) picketing a large institution. You never get to see what she opposes, only that she is for Peace and Involvement. Nowadays, she'd be blocking abortion clinics, but in the 1960's nuns were hip and anti-war. Think Mary Tyler Moore and Sister Sourire. Anyway, George really is a pain, constantly complaining about anything and everything that doesn't pass her standards for Contemporary Meaning. Clothes are a big problem. The sisters wear antiquated habits, while the girls' gym outfits are designed for use in the 1940's, which means they have to be tossed into the dustbin of history. By the end of the film, the girls are frugging in miniskirts, and the nuns are wearing knee length midis that enable them to stride about with a sense of purpose. A moment of high camp is achieved on a desert highway similar to the one Captain America and Billy were to roar up and down the following year. The bus breaks down, and the first passersby turn out to be Hell's Angels. They seem to have been on every Interstate between California and the Mississippi in those days. One of the bikers insults Sister George by calling her a penguin, then threatens her with a switchblade. Later, the leader of the pack asks if she was frightened. "Let's just say I never feared for my immortal soul." To which the biker replies, "Crazy," and moved by her spiritual depth, fixes the bus for her. Presumably we are all seeking the same higher truths, only some do it on Harleys. When asked how she pulled the bikers over to her side, George smirks, "We communicated." The strangest part is that the object of the nuns' cross-country trip, a "youth rally" in Santa Barbara, is never actually shown. The girls do turn on in a psychedelically lit gymnasium at an all boys' school, and perform this weird tribal dance with the boys that looked group frottage. The producers may have worried that the rally would require too many extras, but the zillions of Indians in the Milton Berle sequence could have easily been converted to Catholic hippies. Anyway, the film ends with the bus roaring down the highway, and a cut to the sisters' "Change of Habit," those knee length skirts which they show off crossing a campus that now looks like The Harrad Experiment. What a disappointment.

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