The first encounter between Frank Capra and Robert Riskin, destined to do important work together, was nothing more than a missed opportunity. In 1927 the very young Riskin and John Meehan wrote a bitter satire about religious impostures and human gullibility, Bless You, Sister, which they then produced with family backing. It was based on the story of “Aimee MacPherson, the priestess of a new cult who made piles of money by conning fools and then ruined herself in a sex scandal” (in the words of the acute italian critic Pietro Bianchi, who saw and reviewed the film in 1950). Considering the play’s disastrous financial results, Riskin, who had gone to Hollywood in the meantime, was against turning it into a film and refused to do the adaptation. But Capra, who had significant contractual power, was interested in the story, as long as it could be made in a way that uncompromising cynicism and soul saving morals coexist, shedding light on one another. So here is Sister Fallon, who becomes a phony preacher after a painful personal experience with the encouragement of a corrupt scoundrel but is then redeemed by the love of a blind war hero – who, in perfect sync with melodramatic conventions, is able to discern better than any other the incredible nonsense of this evangelical circus. “The motifs of fraud, despair, self-redemption, and public confession recur in various forms and characters throughout Capra’s subsequent work, with or withour Riskin” (Joseph McBride), and, in fact, Sister Fallon is really the sister of John Doe, both media dependant but not innocent manipulators of easily excitable masses. Over time, this phenomenology of religious feeling continues to enthrall and unsettle American culture, and The Miracle Woman (“a haunting and macabre film […] so many powerful are the signs of a real and symbolic fire, and of the uncontrollable nature of mass and media society”, Vito Zagarrio) is the direct relative of Richard Brooks masterpiece Elmer Gantry (1960, based on Sinclair Lewis’ own novel of “Aimee McPherson story”) and Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood (2007, based on a novel by Upton Sinclair). But Riskin had his reasons: just like the play, the film was snubbed by audiences.

Paola Cristalli