Thunder on the Hill

“Never burn a newspaper or throw away a piece of string.” When convicted murderer Valerie Carns (Ann Blyth) is diverted to a Catholic convent hospital on her way to be executed in Norwich, Sister Mary Bonaventure (Claudette Colbert) sees the raging floods that delay the girl’s transport as a sign from God that Valerie is innocent and must be saved from her imminent demise. The theme of guilt in Douglas Sirk’s Thunder on the Hill doesn’t just apply to Valerie’s crime (“Help me to live through these last few days”), but also to the meticulous Sister Mary whose own sister recently committed suicide based perhaps on Mary’s moral judgment of her. So convinced is Mary of Valerie’s innocence that she essentially conducts her own investigation, which includes breaking convent rules by traveling a few towns over to retrieve Sidney Kingham (Philip Friend), Valerie’s despondent boyfriend. Sirk maintains tension effectively throughout while inserting periodic reminders of Christian theology (“Whoever believes in me shall live forever”). Using an occasionally Gothic brush, Sirk imbues the convent with a sense of claustrophobia while swirling fog and oblique camera angles romanticize the outdoors (note the lovely rowboat journey to Norwich). Gladys Cooper plays the Mother Superior who generally tolerates Sister Mary’s transgressions but draws the line at her playing detective, and Robert Douglas plays hospital physician Edward Jeffreys who turns out to have been personally connected to Valerie and her crime.