New York City is approaching the end of the Prohibition era, which means many people are looking for a quick buck. One such person is Apple Annie (Bette Davis), a street-smart beggar who rules the streets from behind her wicker basket, from where she sells apples to many of the locals, who see her as something of an institution. One of her regular customers is Dave the Dude (Glenn Ford), a gangster who runs a very successful bootlegging operation, and who is massively respected amongst the community. However, with the days of the criminalization of alcohol coming to an end, he has to find new ways to earn a living and maintain his lavish lifestyle, which leads him down various avenues, ultimately finding him before the sinister Steve Darcey (Sheldon Leonard), another gangster from out of town who presents the hesitant Dave with a proposition. Concurrently, Annie receives news of her own – despite having a flourishing career as a vagabond, she has been telling her daughter (who lives in Spain), that she’s actually a wealthy socialite, as she can’t bear to tell her the truth. However, this years-long masquerade is soon brought to a screeching halt when her adult daughter Louise (Ann-Margret) announces that she’ll be visiting soon, with her fiancé (Peter Mann), and his aristocratic father (Arthur O’Connell) in tow. Suddenly, Annie has to find a way to spare her daughter the embarrassment of finding out the truth, leading her to beg Dave for help – and with his girlfriend (Hope Lange) urging him to do the right thing, he reluctantly agrees. Together, they put together a story and transform Annie from a tattered old hag into a glamorous social butterfly – but their plot only becomes more complicated as time goes on, leading to a variety of misadventures that consistently threaten to reveal the truth.

There are two overlapping storylines in Pocketful of Miracles – the wonderful “rags-to-(faux)-riches” plot of a beggar woman having to transform herself, and the story of her gangster friend trying to assert his control over the city of New York. The former is absolutely exceptional and the reason why Frank Capra’s swan song is such a joy. The latter is far less interesting, and comes very close to derailing the film as a whole. Unfortunately, these two taken together create something of an overlong, muddled comedy that runs out of steam midway through, even if there are certain aspects of it that are absolutely delightful in their own way. Capra is one of the most important directors of the Golden Age of Hollywood, so naturally his final film was going to be something special – and considering it was produced on the precipice of the New Hollywood movement, of which Capra was something of an inspiration (even if only honorarily so), there is some value in looking at how he ended his career as a filmmaker before venturing into well-earned retirement from the director’s chair. Therefore, despite some of its more irksome problems, Pocketful of Miracles is a charming comedy about ordinary people in extraordinary situations, made by a director whose entire career was often about real folk finding their way through various challenges that consistently test both their moral grounding and psychological mettle – and while it isn’t a particularly serious work, this film is just about as entertaining as it could be, carrying definite value, especially when we focus less on the needless subplots and more on the main thrust of the film, which is where it really flourishes wonderfully.

If there’s any reason to see Pocketful of Miracles, it has to be that this is another comedy that allowed the iconic Bette Davis to once again show off her comedic timing. Playing the lovable vagabond Apple Annie, Davis is a riot – the first half of the film sees the esteemed actress put away her ethereal glamour, donning the oil-stained rags of an impoverished but happy woman, who is content with a couple of dollars in one hand, half a bottle of gin in the other. The second half, where she undergoes the transformation and becomes the high-society dame is where her legendary sophistication comes to the fore, where she is able to command a room without even saying a word. Such a role in a film like Pocketful of Miracles is catnip for any great actress, since it presents her with a chance to play two sides of a character, flexing various skills that are sometimes lost in more single-avenue performances – but I can’t think of anyone more suited for this material than Davis, who carried such a distinct warmth that was embedded into even her most standoffish characters, making her a reliably great protagonist here. The same can’t be said for Glenn Ford, who is the other lead of the film, and the one who has to shepherd the more unapproachable subplot. Ford is very funny, and has some fantastic moments – but it’s ultimately a performance that feels needlessly forced, and one where his more everyman-akin charms do him more of a disservice, since he may have played complex characters before, but a vicious crime boss seemed a bit out of his wheelhouse, especially one as broad as Dave the Dude. Ford has some good material to work with, and he’s never actively bad, but considering how the film is lead with such gusto by Davis, and with scene-stealing supporting roles by the likes of Hope Lange and Thomas Mitchell, he comes off as far too underdeveloped – but mercifully, the film is ambitious enough that his shortcomings blend into the background, barely even registering beyond a few brief moments where he fails to hit the same highs as the rest of the cast.

The film itself isn’t anything revolutionary – it is profoundly Pygmalion-esque in how it focuses on the transformation of a poverty-stricken woman into the epitome of high-society grace many times before. It may predate the film version of the Shaw adaptation, My Fair Lady by a few years, but there was still something very familiar about this plot that just prevents it from being entirely original. However, this doesn’t mean Pocketful of Miracles is entirely void of merits, especially since this is a film helmed by Capra, who had often demonstrated his incredibly strong authorial voice when it came to comedy, even if some of his late-career films weren’t always very successful. This film does carry the feeling of being produced by a director feeling some kind of fatigue, so while it may lack the spark that made the director’s earlier work so iconic, there’s no reason to see Pocketful of Miracles as too dreadful of a decrease in quality, especially when there is significant merit embedded within it. The comedy in it often very funny, and consistently means well, with each one of the characters coming out of it positively, without too much conflict occurring throughout it. The choices Capra make in Pocketful of Miracles could be seen as far too safe, and there are some leaps of logical oversight that need the viewer to suspend disbelief for the duration of the story, or else this film would simply be too absurd to function properly. However, when the intention of your film is to be reliable, funny and heartwarming, you can’t quite blame anyone involved when it delivers exactly this, and not much else. This is a Golden Age comedy delivered about thirty years too late, with Capra employing many of his same masterful tricks – the only difference is that he’s working with a slightly bigger set of ideas, in an era where comedy was different than it was when his career was in its prime, which makes for lovable but predictable viewing, which may not be all that ideal, but it could’ve been so much worse. 

Released only a few days before Christmas, this film is the quintessential dosage of holiday entertainment many seek out at the time – and for that reason alone, it succeeds. It takes a very careful approach to a familiar story, and mines comedic gold out of what is essentially a very derivative premise. There’s nothing overly unique about Pocketful of Miracles, nor is there much to remember it by, other than the wonderful performance by Bette Davis (who is clearly having so much fun in the role – very few Golden Age actresses knew the value of having fun with your work more than her), and a general sense of enthralling delight that persists throughout the film. Originality is substituted for warmth and good-natured humour, which may make Pocketful of Miracles seem infantile by standards at the time, but it ultimately feels like a return to a time where such boldly entertaining comedies were in vogue, rather than being a remnant of a time passed. The real value comes in approaching this film as a bit of nostalgia, especially for the esteemed director, who may not have gone out on the best note, but at least produced one final work of dizzying joy and relentless optimism – it’s not a major work, and barely ever registers when discussing Capra, but it stands as a quaint and charming swan song that shows that even later on in his career, he was able to weave together such wonderfully compelling works that don’t take themselves too seriously, and simply encourage the audience to have a good time.