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It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Debbie Reynolds had one more chance after her triumph as Molly Brown to sing in the movies, and even if the critics carped that this was simply a rip-off of "The Sound of Music" craze, she came off unscathed. Reynolds is Sister Anne, a Belgian nun who brings music into her new convent and turns it upside down. Like Sweet Apple Ohio in "Bye Bye Birdie", she gets "Mr. Showbiz" (Ed Sullivan) into the act, but unlike other sudden new stars cast into the limelight, she doesn't get into any "nasty habits". Sister Anne simply wants to praise God through her music, and thanks to the kindly Father Clementi (Ricardo Montalban), her Mother Superior (an overly chatty Greer Garson) agrees. A grouchy Agnes Moorehead and a sweet Juanita Moore are the other nuns in the order, and with Reynolds' charm working her over, it is no time at all before Moorehead actually cracks a smile. Like Angela Lansbury sings in "Dear World", it only takes one person to play a drum (in Sister Anne's case, it is her guitar, "Sister Adele") to get everybody marching.Sister Anne was famous for the hit song "Dominque", the only time in music history where a nun had music on the charts. The soundtrack is filled out with a few other small gems, which include the touching "Beyond the Stars" and the lively "It's a Miracle!". A group number, "Brother John", features all of the nuns, and is another highlight. With this music, you won't need "The Sound of Music's" Eleanor Parker promising that next time she will bring in her harmonica.There are some serious plot points in this sentimental tale, most sweetly Sister Anne's love for the young Dominic (Ricky Cordell), a feisty but lovable child she looks after when discovering the truth about his situation. When a young woman tells Reynolds of her intentions to have an abortion, Reynolds acts appropriately to the convictions of a Catholic nun, not judgmental, even if it appears she is being so. And when she hears "Dominique" being played to a (rather bad) rock beat, Sister Anne must find a new venue to continue to do her work for God.Reynolds is excellent, while Moorehead, Moore and Garson seem to be playing "types" of nuns than "characters". It is nice to see Moorehead switch from grouchy to kindly, but I found Garson's overly wise mother superior a bit pretentious, unlike Peggy Woods' serene Reverand Mother in "The Sound of Music". Of "Nun" films (there are many!), Reynolds' Sister Anne may not ever be compared to Deborah Kerr's ("Black Narcissus", "Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison") or Audrey Hepburn's ("The Nun's Story"), but she ain't no Sister Mary Clarence (Whoopie Goldberg, "Sister Act"), either. Too bad Mary Wickes wasn't available here to be the bus driver! The real life Sister Anne did not end up as lucky, having a rather tragic ending that is a movie of itself.

I agree that Debbie sings some of the best musical numbers of her career, and between the songs in "Bundle of Joy" and "The Singing Nun" I'll take "The Singing Nun".Just as the film "Jeannie Eagels" is a fantasy very loosely based on the life of ill-fated actress Jeannie Eagels and as such basically only got one or two facts straight, so does "The Singing Nun" stretch reality and we wretch. Stretch and Wretch.On the other hand, if we accept these films as the fiction they are, then they become good "moral" stories. And so "The Singing Nut" Debbie Reynolds sings and dimples her way through a film that resembles reality in only the fact that a nun named "Sister Smile" actually put out an album of her songs and it caused a big flurry of worry for the Sister.Maybe some of the songs in the film were actually written by Jeanne-Paul Marie Deckers but the words for "Dominique" seem to not be the same words shown in the English translation of the song on my copy of the original album. There is a song called "Sister Adele" about her Spanish guitar which is also not the same song as the one played in the film, and another funny item is the guitar Debbie Reynolds wields happens to be a Nylon Stringed Classical guitar- A Spanish Guitar does not have a round hole, a Spanish Guitar happens to have F-Holes and steel strings.Even though this film is fiction and fantasy and ideology, I do not cringe when I see it like I do "The Sound of Music" or "My Fair Lady"- where I do not know why they bothered to write dialogue when they could have just sung those movies all the way through with no dialogue whatsoever. although the music and song in those films is overwhelming, the fact that they are nonstop though the films is also overwhelming and can only be enjoyed in very small doses. On the other hand, "The flying, er, Singing Nun" has some good acting by Anges Moorehead who is my favourite Red Headed Actress and Bey**ch, oh I just loved Agnes, she could do anything including all kinds of ethnic parts, Ricardo Montal-Khan dons a priestly habit rather than a pair of swim trunks or 23rd Century Barbarian Garb, and Katherine Ross is very good: Almost to the point that she does not resemble a girl who is heading toward prostitution, she is too squeaky-clean. Someone made a comment that all this film was missing was Bing Crosby and I agree, where was he when this was made? The main reason I like this film is because I loved the song "Dominique" as a small child - Everyone loved that song, and I mean it was everywhere when it came out. This film- Although getting the life of Soeur Sourire totally wrong, does NOT get wrong the feeling o the early 60's which I happen to remember because "I was there". I do not mean in Belgium, but in 1963, and although I grew up in southern California and not Belgium, the outdoor scenes in this film make me remember things I have forgotten for decades.One thing the film is accurate about: That a nun could write a song, record it, and it becomes not just a local hit that was apparently originally intended to be sold only locally to help the Convent, but by a set of extremely lucky circumstances this song would also become an International hit, a worldwide hit and a song of comfort after the assassination of JFK. The film does not exaggerate the impact the song had on the world, as a matter of fact, it waters that impact down a bit.Sister Anne had a different fate other than the one shown at the end of the film, but that does not matter to me: This film is fantasy, not reality: Because I want to think it could have been good like that for the real Singing Nun, but life is sometimes not as simple as shown in movies.I am looking at the artwork on and in the Album Cover and there is even a set of lithographed prints... And ultimately that art speaks about a faith that is simple, and that is the only thing that matters really, and I wish that could have been brought out in this film- But it is not, it is not even mentioned at all, and he artwork was just as important as the music.

Actually, this is not really as bad a movie as some would say it is. I think that it would have been more appreciated if it hadn't come out on the heels of the super-money maker "Sound of Music" which saved 20th Century Fox from going down-under into bankruptcy because of the very flopish Cleopatra which starred Liz and Dicky-Boy! We, here we have the Aba Daba Honeymoon girl Debbie Reynolds, who converted to the Jewish Religion because of her marriage to Eddie Fisher, playing a Christian Catholic Nun! Debbie Reynolds had really come a long way in there career from the days of playing Maureen the sister of the Daughter of Rosie O'Grady with June Haver to playing Helen Kane in Three Little Words; Three Weeks With Love, with Jane Powell who was also born on April Fools Day same as Debbie was, having a record hit with her and Carleton Carpenter singing Aba Daba Honeymoon. Then she later went to game in Singing in the Rain, playing a dog reincarnated into a female human form, and later in the wonderful Unsinkable Molly Brown, but to Debbies credit, n The Singing Nun she does some of her finest singing and it's incredible to hear her since she really never had one singing lesson exact for some coaching in her M.G.M. days, and coaching is not the same as taking singing lessons. Her singing is wonderful to hear! Then we have the rest of the cast trying to not look embarrassed for agreeing to appear in this film. You sometimes think that Ricardo Montalban is looking around thinking, "Where's Esther Williams to throw me in a swimming pool to do a water ballet to save this turkey!" Agnes Moorehead looks like she's trying to still play Endora on Bewitched. Tom Drake looks like he's looking around to see if Judy Garland will save him by doing some kind of singing duet. Greer Garson is playing the Mother Superior trying to still be Mrs. Minever. Chad Everett is still acting like Dr. Gannon in which he could say, as he did almost every Medical Hospiital show he was on "It's an aneurysm!" I wonder if that's what he thought of the movie? Debbie Reynolds was in an interview on Turner Classics and even though she and Gene Kelly hated each other in the making of Singing In The Rain, she did say that if it wasn't for what she learned from him she wouldn't have lasted in this business for 60 years. So, put it all together, The Singing Nun is not that bad of a movie, and you should see it in a movie theater with it's wide-screen and stereophonic sound to really appreciate it for what it is which is a great entertainment package for the whole family to enjoy together. Wonder what ever happened to that kind of movie? But, again, to give her credit, Debbie Reynolds does her finest singing ever, and she is a real joy to watch in this film!

The film is somewhat syrupy and a bit simplistic, but correct in most essentials and, after all, quite entertaining. The music, of course, is the best thing about it...quite uplifting. "Raindrops" is my particular favorite, but the duet on "Beyond the Stars" is excellent as well. Miss Reynolds' voice is more than adequate to do justice to the music, most of which (I see from the Soundtrack listings) Sister Sourire wrote herself.