The Preacher's Wife | |
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Directed by | Penny Marshall |
Written by | Nat Mauldin Allan Scott |
Based on | The Bishop's Wife 1947 screenplay by
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Produced by | Samuel Goldwyn Jr. |
Starring | |
Cinematography | Miroslav Ondříček |
Edited by | George Bowers Stephen A. Rotter |
Music by | Hans Zimmer |
Production companies | |
Distributed by | Buena Vista Pictures Distribution |
Release date |
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Running time | 124 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Box office | $57 million [1] |
The Preacher's Wife is a 1996 American Christmas fantasy comedy-drama film directed by Penny Marshall and starring Denzel Washington, Whitney Houston, and Courtney B. Vance. It is a remake of the 1947 film The Bishop's Wife , [2] which in turn was based on the 1928 novel of the same name by Robert Nathan.
It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Musical or Comedy Score. The film was nominated for six NAACP Image Awards, including Outstanding Motion Picture, and won two—for Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture (Whitney Houston) and Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture (Loretta Devine).
A voiceover by the preacher's son Jeremiah Biggs guides the viewer through the film.
Reverend Henry Biggs is the pastor of a small struggling African American Baptist church in a poverty-stricken neighborhood of New York City. Membership is declining, Henry is pulled in a hundred directions by his parishioners' needs, and the church's finances are in trouble. Henry is under intense pressure from real estate developer Joe Hamilton to sell the church's property so that Hamilton can build luxury condominiums on the site. Henry has also become neglectful of his wife Julia and his son Jeremiah. Julia worries that her marriage is failing. Unsure that he can make a difference in his parishioners' lives and beginning to lose his faith, Henry prays to God for help, which comes in the form of Dudley, a witty and debonair angel. Dudley tells Henry that he is an angel sent by God to help him, but Henry is deeply suspicious of Dudley. Julia, however, is instantly charmed by the handsome and unflappable angel.
With Christmas approaching, Henry's schedule becomes increasingly burdensome, and Dudley begins to spend most of his time with Julia and Jeremiah. Henry's secretary Beverly becomes comically defensive and aggressive, believing Dudley is there to take her job. Julia's wasp-tongued mother, Margueritte is also suspicious of Dudley, because she believes the newcomer will break up her daughter's marriage. Dudley and Julia go ice skating, and then later spend an evening in the jazz club where Julia once performed. After Henry confronts Dudley, Dudley realizes that he is falling in love with Julia. So, Dudley turns his attention to Hamilton and manages to disrupt his schemes to get Henry to sell the church. Henry now realizes that his family is the most important thing in his life, and he resolves to be a better husband and father. At the church's Christmas pageant, Henry finds his faith in God renewed and ties to his family restored.
With his work done, Dudley gives the Biggs family a fully decorated Christmas tree as a gift. Dudley then erases all memories of himself from everyone he has met, and although he attends morning service on Christmas Eve, no one recognizes him. However, Jeremiah, who has the faith of a child, still remembers Dudley, and wishes him a merry Christmas.
The motion picture was developed by Denzel Washington's Mundy Lane Entertainment. [3] The screenplay was written by Nat Mauldin and Allan Scott. Credits are given to Robert E. Sherwood and Leonardo Bercovici for the 1947 film The Bishop's Wife, and to author Robert Nathan (for his novel The Bishop's Wife).
The role of Julia was written with Whitney Houston in mind. Denzel Washington says that he first considered Julia Roberts for the role, but quickly turned to Whitney Houston. [3] Houston admitted that she was reluctant to accept, feeling she could not do justice to a role that required her to play a dowdy housewife. Only after reading the script a second time and seeing parallels between her own life and the role of Julia did Houston accept. [4] Houston was paid $10 million to appear in the film, making her the highest paid black actress at the time and third highest paid film actress of 1996. [3]
The Preacher's Wife was the third film produced by Washington's company Mundy Lane Entertainment. For Washington, the movie was a meaningful project due to its message about the value of family, community, and faith. Moreover, as Washington reflected to Variety magazine, the film provided opportunities for those underrepresented in show business:
"I’m happy to know that on a film like ‘Devil in a Blue Dress’ we put 100 or so many black people to work, and it was the same with ‘The Preacher’s Wife,’ [Washington] said. “And it will be the same thing with other films that I’m involved in, whether I’m on a producer level or not. We do it because they’re capable and because nobody else is necessarily looking out for them,” he says of African-American talent. [5]
Filming began in early January 1996. Trinity United Methodist Church in Newark, New Jersey, served as the Biggs' New York City church. [3] The production leased the church, and began renovating it in February 1996. The interior was painted, new carpet laid, and the main doors repaired. The production team designed a pulpit and altar rails that more accurately reflected the design of Baptist churches. After filming, the church kept the pulpit, and the production crew worked with architects from the United Methodist Church to design and install rails more fitting of the Methodist style. Filming occurred there from March 11 to April 3, with about a quarter of the church's membership hired as extras. (The church used the rental fees paid by the production to replace its boiler and HVAC system.) [6]
Production was plagued by poor weather and accidents. Interior sets were constructed at Chelsea Piers, a film and television production facility in Manhattan, New York. [7] Severe snowstorms in New Jersey (where scenes were shot in Paterson [7] ) and New York (where scenes were shot throughout New York City) cost the production several shooting days. Later, the cast and crew moved to Portland, Maine, to scenes which occur at an ice skating rink, but unseasonably warm weather turned the ice to water and forced the production to rent snow-making machines. The production filmed in several crime-ridden areas of New York City to achieve authenticity. Robberies were common in the area, leaving the cast and crew nervous. While filming exteriors and interiors at a church and parsonage in Yonkers, New York, a building a block away caught fire and two children died. [8] One crew member rushed a ladder from the production to the burning building, and saved the life of a four-year-old child. [9] Accidents also affected the production. The weekend before filming began at the church, an elderly parishioner fell, broke her hip and died. In the middle of filming, a crew member was struck by a car and killed. The production schedule was also impacted by Houston's decision only to shoot scenes with vocal performances during the afternoon. [8]
Filming was scheduled to wrap at the end of February, but the crew was still shooting at the beginning of May. Some final scenes shot were those at the Main Street Cafe in Tarrytown, New York. The entire street had to be dressed for Christmas in fake snow laid down along the street. [7]
Lionel Richie made his acting debut in the film as the owner of the jazz club. [10]
The Preacher's Wife is the best-selling gospel album of all time. [11] The album also remained at number-one for a record twenty-six weeks on the Billboard Top Gospel Albums Chart. The Georgia Mass Choir appears in the film. The soundtrack to the film (performed by Whitney Houston) consists of gospel numbers and includes performances by Monica, Faith Evans, the three members of New Edition who embarked on solo careers (Bobby Brown, who was Houston's real-life husband at the time, Ralph Tresvant and Johnny Gill), Cissy Houston and Shirley Caesar among others. [12] Houston sang Richard Smallwood's I Love the Lord in the film. A favorite song of hers since childhood, it gained renewed popularity when it was heard in the film. [11]
Stephen Holden, writing for The New York Times , called the film "sweetly uplifting" and "a shrewdly conceived update", and had high praise for actress Jenifer Lewis and the funny scene where the children in the Christmas pageant cannot recall their lines. [13] Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times also found the film "warm, sentimental, amusing yet serious" and an "inspired reworking" of the 1947 original. He singled out Penny Marshall's directing for being "consistently wise and judicious", and praised Jenifer Lewis and Loretta Devine. [10] Critic Roger Ebert gave the film 3 out of 4 stars, but was a bit equivocal in his review, concluding: "The Preacher's Wife is a sweet and good-hearted comedy about the holiday season. ... This movie could have done more, but what it does, it makes you feel good about." [14]
Duane Byrge, writing for The Hollywood Reporter , also felt the film uneven. Although he found it heart-warming, he wrote that it had a "patchy narrative" and felt the film made Washington and Houston such great characters that it was hard to see why the Biggs' marriage should survive. Too often, he concluded, the plot seemed nothing more than a means of stringing together terrific musical performances by Houston and the Georgia Mass Choir. Byrge found Penny Marshall's directing slow at times but felt that casting director Paula Herold had done wonders. He singled out Courtney B. Vance as an appealing if downbeat husband, Jenifer Lewis as the "sassy" mother-in-law, and Loretta Devine as Bigg's defensive, aggressive secretary who thinks Dudley is there to replace her. Marshall, Byrge said, was more effective directing these lively characters (and actors) than the film's stars. [15]
In contrast, Caren Weiner Campbell, writing for Entertainment Weekly , found Denzel Washington to be lackluster (though the gospel singing scenes were quite good). Her strongest criticism was directed at the screenplay. She felt the script had too many subplots, with the narrative by the character of Jeremiah was "sappy", and was lacking in the "fun miracles" of the original. She also criticized Marshall's directing for being slow and tedious. [16] Unlike other reviewers, Jackie Potts in Miami Herald felt the characters were dated and not updated. She found Courtney B. Vance's acting humorless, and was highly critical of Whitney Houston's acting. "[Houston] sleepwalks through scenes as the dignified mother, doing little more than tucking her 6-year-old son (Justin Pierre Edmund) in. It's not a showy role, but Houston plays it as if the frost outdoors has settled on her shoulders". While she had high praise for Denzel Washington (he "plays Dudley with a 100-watt smile and childlike sense of wonder"), she had little to say for Penny Marshall's directing. It was, she concluded, slow and the overall tone of the film "strangely solemn"—with only minor relief given by Jenifer Lewis' biting, scathingly funny turn as a tart-tongued mother. [17]
The Preacher's Wife currently holds a 62% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 47 reviews. The site's consensus states: "Solid performances and a steady directorial hand help The Preacher's Wife offer some reliably heartwarming – albeit fairly predictable – holiday cheer." [18]
The film grossed $56,432,646 worldwide, of which $48,102,795 was in the US, ranking The Preacher's Wife as #33 in domestic box office receipts for movies released in 1996. The movie's US gross was only slightly below that of Evita ($50 million) and above those for Romeo + Juliet ($46.3 million) and One Fine Day ($46.2 million). [19]
Although considered a respectable performance, The Preacher's Wife underperformed studio expectations given its $60 million production budget plus an additional $15 million in marketing expenses. Industry insiders had hoped that The Preacher's Wife would attract a significant crossover audience due to its two high-profile mainstream stars and heavily promoted soundtrack album. "Whitney is her own built-in marketing machine," a studio marketing chief told the Los Angeles Times prior to the film's release, referring to Houston's widespread appeal at the time. [20]
Award | Category | Nominee(s) | Result | Ref. |
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Academy Awards | Best Original Musical or Comedy Score | Hans Zimmer | Nominated | [21] |
American Music Awards | Top Soundtrack | The Preacher's Wife | Nominated | [22] |
Blockbuster Entertainment Awards | Favorite Soundtrack | Nominated | [23] | |
Grammy Awards | Best R&B Album | Nominated | [24] | |
Best Female R&B Vocal Performance | "I Believe in You and Me" – Whitney Houston | Nominated | ||
Movieguide Awards | Best Movie for Families | Won | [25] | |
Most Inspiring Movie | Won | |||
NAACP Image Awards | Outstanding Motion Picture | Nominated | ||
Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture | Whitney Houston | Won | ||
Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture | Loretta Devine | Won | ||
Jenifer Lewis | Nominated | |||
Outstanding Youth Actor/Actress | Justin Pierre Edmund | Nominated | ||
Outstanding Album | The Preacher's Wife | Won | ||
Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards | Favorite Movie Actress | Whitney Houston | Nominated | [26] |
Whitney Elizabeth Houston was an American singer, actress, and film producer. Known as “the Voice”, she is one of the most awarded entertainers and one of the best-selling music artists of all time, with sales of over 220 million records worldwide. Her crossover appeal on popular music charts influenced the breaking down of gender and racial barriers in popular culture. Known for her vocal delivery and live performances, Houston was ranked second by Rolling Stone on its 2023 list of the "200 Greatest Singers of All Time". Her life and career have been the subject of multiple documentaries and television specials.
The Bishop's Wife is a 1947 American Christmas romantic fantasy comedy film directed by Henry Koster, starring Cary Grant, Loretta Young and David Niven. The plot is about an angel who helps a bishop with his problems. The film was adapted by Leonardo Bercovici and Robert E. Sherwood from the 1928 novel of the same name by Robert Nathan.
Denzel Hayes Washington Jr. is an American actor, producer, and director. Known for his dramatic roles on stage and screen, The New York Times named him the greatest actor of the 21st century in 2020. He has received several accolades, including two Academy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, and a Tony Award as well as nominations for two Emmy Awards and a Grammy Award. Washington has been honored with the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2016, AFI Life Achievement Award in 2019, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2022.
Loretta Young was an American actress. Starting as a child, she had a long and varied career in film from 1917 to 1953. She received numerous honors including an Academy Award, two Golden Globe Awards, and three Primetime Emmy Awards as well as two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her work in film and television.
Gregory Oliver Hines was an American dancer, actor, choreographer, and singer. He is one of the most celebrated tap dancers of all time. As an actor, he is best known for Wolfen (1981), The Cotton Club (1984), White Nights (1985), Running Scared (1986), The Gregory Hines Show (1997–1998), playing Ben on Will & Grace (1999–2000), and for voicing Big Bill on the Nick Jr. animated children's television program Little Bill (1999–2004).
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Emily Drinkard, known professionally as Cissy Houston, was an American soul and gospel singer. Born in Newark, New Jersey, Houston began singing with three of her siblings in the family gospel group, The Drinkard Singers. By the early 1960s, Houston began a career as a session vocalist for several secular musicians in the rhythm and blues, soul, rock and roll, pop and rock genres. After initially joining her nieces' group the Gospelaires for a session with Ronnie Hawkins in 1961, Houston gradually took control of the group, which revamped into "The Group" with Houston, niece Sylvia Shemwell, Myrna Smith and teenager Estelle Brown. She eventually founded the girl group The Sweet Inspirations with Shemwell, Smith and Brown in 1967 and that year signed a contract with Atlantic Records where, with Houston as lead singer, they would record four albums before Houston departed for a solo career in 1970. Her best known solo singles include the top 20 R&B chart single, "I'll Be There" and the top 5 dance single, "Think It Over". Her solo career culminated with two Grammy Award wins, both in the Traditional Gospel Album category.
One Wish: The Holiday Album is the only Christmas album by American singer Whitney Houston. It was released by Arista Records on November 18, 2003. Chiefly produced by Mervyn Warren, along with additional production from Troy Taylor, Gordon Chambers and Barry Eastmond, One Wish features a duet with Houston's daughter Bobbi Kristina Brown. The album also includes "Joy to the World" and "Who Would Imagine a King," both of which first appeared on The Preacher's Wife soundtrack (1996).
Jenifer Jeanette Lewis is an American actress. She began her career appearing in Broadway musicals and worked as a back-up singer for Bette Midler before appearing in films Beaches (1988) and Sister Act (1992). Lewis is known for playing roles of mothers in the films What's Love Got to Do With It (1993), Poetic Justice (1993), The Preacher's Wife (1996), The Brothers (2001), The Cookout (2004), Think Like a Man (2012) and in the sequel Think Like a Man Too (2014), Baggage Claim (2013) and The Wedding Ringer (2015), as well as in The Temptations miniseries (1998).
Debra Martin Chase is an American film, television, and theater producer. Chase was the first Black female producer to have a deal at any major studio. She is also one of the first Black filmmakers to produce a film that grossed over $100 million. To date, her films have grossed over a half billion dollars at the box office.
The Preacher's Wife: Original Soundtrack Album is the soundtrack to the 1996 film of the same name and features songs performed and produced by American singer Whitney Houston, who also stars in the film. The soundtrack was released on November 26, 1996, by Arista Records and BMG Entertainment. With sales of 6 million copies worldwide, it is the best-selling gospel album of all time.
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"I Believe in You and Me" is a song written by Sandy Linzer and David Wolfert in 1982. The song was first recorded and released by the R&B group The Four Tops, who released it as a single from their album One More Mountain (1982). While it failed to reach the US Top 40, it became a moderate hit for the group on the US Billboard R&B chart, peaking at number 40 in early 1983.
"Step by Step" is a song recorded by Whitney Houston, originally written and recorded by Annie Lennox. The song appeared on the B-side to Lennox's 1992 single "Precious". Whitney Houston released a reworked crossover R&B/pop cover version in 1996 on the soundtrack to the film The Preacher's Wife. Houston's version replaces Lennox's verses with new lyrics and omits portions of the bridge. Annie Lennox provides backing vocals for Houston's rendition. The accompanying music video was directed by Paul Hunter.
"My Heart Is Calling" is a song recorded by the American recording artist Whitney Houston for the 1996 film The Preacher's Wife. It was released on June 10, 1997, as the third and final single by Arista Records from the accompanying soundtrack. The song was written and produced solely by Babyface. Musically, the song is an R&B ballad, with gospel music and funk influences, and the lyrics speak about meeting someone special. "My Heart Is Calling" received mainly positive reviews from music critics, who commended Houston's soulful performance. It peaked at number 77 on the United States Billboard Hot 100, and number 35 on Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. There was no music video made for the song.
Moira North is the founder and artistic director of the Ice Theatre of New York, a theatrical figure skating company. For her work with this organization, in 1998 and 2003 she was selected as one of the "25 Most Influential Names in Figure Skating" by International Figure Skating Magazine. North has choreographed for film and skating productions in addition to her work for Ice Theatre. Her credits include teaching actress Illeana Douglas to skate for her role in the film To Die For, teaching and choreographing a skating scene in the film The Preacher's Wife with Whitney Houston and Denzel Washington, choreographing five productions of Montreal Fashions on Ice for the Québec Delegation at Rockefeller Plaza and choreographing the opening ceremonies for both the National Hockey League All-Star Game and World Cup Hockey. She also served as creative consultant for Arts & Entertainment's Winter Solstice on Ice, a 1999 holiday season television special.
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Denzel Washington is an American actor known for his performance on stage and screen. Washington made his feature film debut in Carbon Copy (1981). In 1982, Washington made his first appearance in the medical drama St. Elsewhere as Dr. Philip Chandler. The role proved to be the breakthrough in his career. He starred as Private First Class Melvin Peterson in the drama A Soldier's Story (1984). The film was an adaptation of the Off-Broadway play A Soldier's Play (1981–1983) in which Washington had earlier portrayed the same character.
American entertainer Whitney Houston worked in nine feature films, three television films, and seven television episodes, and appeared in seventeen commercials.