But Doctor, I Never Learned How To Read

“The Song Of Bernadette”  —  movie review
“The Song Of Bernadette” (1943) is one of those classic black and white movies I love to watch every now and then.  A religious movie, it reaches down into the heart of the little  boy I used to be and reminds me of a time of simpler faith.  In her debut film role, Jennifer Jones plays Bernadette Soubirous of Lourdes who has a vision of a beautiful lady “appearing” to her in a small grotto near a garbage dump just outside of town.  The “lady” instructs Bernadette to bathe in the waters of a spring.  Bernadette can see no spring, so she begins to scratch at the ground until she reaches mud, which she proceeds to smear on her hands, arms and face.  Water trickles from the hole and, after a series of miraculous healings, the movie ends with Bernadette’s death and a large church having been built on the bluff overlooking the grotto.
In addition to Jones, there are memorable performances by Vincent Price, Lee J. Cobb and Gladys Cooper.
The movie won four Oscars in 1944, including Best Actress (for Jones), and had an additional seven nominations, including best picture.  It lost to “Casablanca“.  Needless to say this is a “classic” movie in every sense of the word.  I highly recommend it!!
There is one particularly great / funny scene in the movie which I always look forward to:  the first miracle cure is of a partially sighted sculptor, who washes his face in the spring water.  He rushes to the local doctor with the news that he can now fully see.  The Doctor examines him and, and in testing him, asks him to read a chart out loud while one eye and then the other is blocked.  The man cannot read the chart and the Doctor concludes:  “There, you see, no change.”  The man replies:  “But Doctor, I never learned how to read!  I tell you I can see!”  Aside from the humor of the scene, it is a profound statement about both the care we must take in making observations and in understanding our assumptions as the scientific observer.  As I said, highly recommended!
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2016	But Doctor, I Never Learned How To Read
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