Thunder on the Hill

A dire entrenching flood encompasses an unsuspecting village, and desperate peeps must swiftly find improvised accommodation at a local convent.

The industrious nuns run a spirited ship as they facilitate and extemporize, fortunately without interminable impositions grandiosely disrupting their heartfelt efforts.

Although a woman condemned for murder and about to be executed does arrive, notoriously regarded and somewhat embarrassed to be awkwardly engaged in social confines (Ann Blyth as Valerie Carns). 

Yet her aggrieved conversations bear exculpatory fruit, as a sympathetic nun believes her protests of innocence (Claudette Colbert as Sister Mary), and soon sets about finding her distraught betrothed and bringing him back to the nunnery by boat (Philip Friend as Sidney Kingham).

Soon the oddest detective film to ever be potentially considered film noir, spiritually emerges in the austere heights of a religious order dedicated to service.

The true identity of the guilty murderer having yet to be determined, serendipitous sleuthing and dogmatic deduction must altruistically absolve.

Fortunately, most of the town is expediently residing within the walls, so interviews can be conducted even though the weather is quite inclement.

And clues indeed materialize which fortuitously aid their compassionate endeavours, although rank and disbelief antiseptically quell the shamanistic tide.

I suppose on the one hand we find an age old symbol of old world dichotomies, wherein which traditional representations of gender discrimination uptightly abound.

'Tis true that at one alternative time there were less doors to freely walk through, and many institutions were therefore more robust due to a lack of external competition.

Yet within Sister Mary not so discreetly aids a countercultural phenomenon, a woman scandalously disregarded and about to be executed by the State.

She emphatically moves holistic heaven and high water through a genuine desire to see justice done, and thereby emancipates a forlorn soul judiciously condemned to prematurely pass.

Was director Sirk in fact intending to structurally distend sociocultural upheaval, through surreal suggestion subconsciously synergizing film noir with locally ascribed progressive inclinations?

I can't answer that question but as far as novelty is uniquely concerned, Thunder on the Hill presents convoluted cheek within the disputed conventions of film noir.

A lot of fun regardless if you're looking for something unlike anything else.

A critical reflection from a different time.

Bizarro upbeat romantic resonance. 

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