Mary is full of 'scathingly brilliant' ideas which Rachel goes along with. Through the course of the film they set someone's head in plaster, give tours of the nuns' private rooms, have the fire brigade called out by accident when they're smoking in the cellars and, my personal favourite, replace the nuns' sugar with bubble bath which is one of the funniest scenes of the film. But, as time goes on, Mary's brash nature is assailed by seeing the truth about how the nuns live and, after being given another chance by Mother Superior, she turns things around most unexpectedly. Perhaps the best thing about Mary's evolution is that it isn't sudden. She still performs pranks as she's coming to her realisation but there are a couple of quiet moments that are all the more poignant for being rare.
Rosalind Russell is, of course, outstanding as Mother Superior. She makes a work of art out of twitching as lemon juice is accidentally squirted in her face and the film is peppered with her expressions and comments about the behaviour of the two girls. The rest of the cast is equally as enjoyable and, for film obsessives, there is a brief appearance by Gypsy Rose Lee as Mrs Phipps (Russell played Lee's mother in the retelling of her life four years earlier).
This isn't a film with pretensions to be anything but a family comedy and, as such, is highly entertaining.
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