"Bishop's Wife, the" is a comedy movie directed by Henry Coster and starring Faina Jocon, Gary Grant, Loretta Young, and David Niven.
Bishop's wife, tells the comedy movie story of a sophisticated angel who comes to aid an overworked bishop. The bishop had prayed for God's help in raising funds for a new city's cathedral. The angel came at the request of the bishop.
An Episcopal Bishop of the comedy movie, Henry Brougham, has been working for months on the plans for an elaborate new cathedral which he hopes will be paid for primarily by a wealthy, stubborn widow. He is losing sight of his family and why he became a churchman in the first place. Enter Dudley, an angel sent to help him. Dudley does help everyone he meets, but not necessarily in the way they would have preferred. Except Henry, Everyone loves him, but Henry begins to believe that Dudley is there to replace him, both at work and in his family's affections, as Christmas approaches.
Silver-screen glamor oozes from this vestigially cloying but devilishly feel-good Hollywood fable about an angel, descending from heaven in the physical form of Cary Grant, who is assigned by the Almighty to answer the prayer of an Episcopal bishop Henry Brougham (Niven), who is preoccupied with his imminent fund-raising of a cathedral which puts a strain on his family life in the comedy movie.
The angel of the comedy movie with the name Dudley, a choir-conducting, ice-skating, harp-thrumming omnipotent being, comes clean with a dubious Henry of his mission and poses as his new assistant squires Henry's neglected wife Julia (Young) to recollect her fondest memory, charms the entire household including the high-pitched housekeeper Matilda (Lanchester), Henry's prim secretary Mildred (Haden), and the Brougham's small daughter Debby (Grimes), also, convinces an atheist professor Wutheridge (Woolley) to finally knuckle down to write the history book he has been stalling ever since. Eventually, Dudley's mission is not to build a cathedral, the fund can be wisely disbursed to a more exigent need of its time, but to set Henry's derailed life back on track, right before the advent of Christmas.
While the three leads are deftly treading their designated paths with admirable expertise: Grant is particularly jaunty in Dudley's backhanded magickal tricks with an understated poker face, Young radiates incredible bonhomie and saintliness and Niven, taking everything with a pinch of salt, perfectly offsets Grant's exuding charisma in his sizzling pique, it is the witty special effects that mostly, gives the movie an endearing quality that weathers with the age and shifting ethos, a self-typing typewriter, a self-replenishing bottle of sherry and a fully-bedecked Christmas tree, it is indeed, small wonders that save the day in Henry Koster's vintage heart-warmer ensconced as a go-to holiday classic comedy movie with wholesome contentment.