Cradle Song

Dorothea Wieck (3rd January 1908 in Davos, – 19th February 1986 in Berlin ) and was a German theater and film actress.  Her English-film debut was as Sister Joanna, in Martinez Sierra’s “Canción de cuna” (Cradle Song) 1933. It is a story of a group of nuns who bring up a baby girl left on the doorstep of their convent. They name her Teresa, and the final scene takes place about twenty years later, as Teresa is leaving the convent to get married, and the nun who brought her up, Sister Joanna of the Cross, is reluctant to let her go rather than have her stay and become a nun.

A Nun At The Crossroads

“A Nun at the crossroads” (Encrucijada para una monja)

During an uprising in the Belgian Congo, a convent of nuns is besieged and the Reverend Mother is killed and Sister Maria, played by Rosanna Schiaffion is raped. Returning to Belgium, Sister Maria finds out to her horror that she is pregnant. Rejected by her family and her sister, she is told by the Vatican that she is supposed to either give the baby to the church and still be a nun or keep the baby and leave the order.

Sisters of Satan

 

“The Nun and the Devil”, or “Le Monache di Sant’Arcangelo” in the original Italian, is an erotic 1973 French/ Italian nunsploitation film directed by Domenico Paolella. It is also known as “Sisters of Satan” (UK) and “The Nuns of Saint Archangel” (US). The action, based on a true story, is set in the 16th century at the convent of Sant Arcangelo, near Naples, then under Spanish rule.

 The story involves the power struggles and sexual intrigues of a group of good-looking nuns at the Sant Arcangelo Convent and in particular the machinations of Sister Julia (played by former Miss Great Britain, Anne Heywood) as she attempts, by any means possible, to succeed to the position of the dying Mother Superior. The nuns struggle with their vows of celibacy, some inclining to lesbianism whilst others invite male lovers secretly into their cells. Meanwhile a corrupt Church hopes to benefit from an aristocratic donation to the Convent, before launching an inquisition into the lubricious and corrupt activities of the inmates of the Convent. There then follow graphic scenes of torture as miscreant nuns are stripped naked and tortured with a variety of devices in order to elicit a confession of their misdemanours. The film ends with a resonant condemnation of the power hungry and corrupt Church by the Sister Julia after she has been found guilty and compelled to take poison to end her life.

Agnes of God

 

 

Agnes of God is a play by John Pielmeier which tells the story of a novice nun who gives birth and insists that the dead child was the result of a virgin conception. A psychiatrist and the mother superior of the convent clash during the resulting investigation. The title is a pun on the Latin phrase Agnus Dei (Lamb of God).

The play was adapted for a movie in 1985, starring Jane Fonda, Anne Bancroft and Meg Tilly.

This drama is widely believed to be based on an actual incident, which occurred in a convent in Brighton, New York, just outside the city line of Rochester.

Kate Cutler

 

Kate Ellen Louisa Cutler (14 August 1864 – 14 May 1955) was an English singer and actress, known in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as an ingénue in musical comedies, and later as a character actress in comic and dramatic plays.

Miss Cutler took the title role of Suzette in “The French Maid” a musical comedy in two acts by Basil Hood with music by Walter Slaughter, first produced at the Theatre Royal, Bath, England, under the management of Milton Bode on the 4 April 1896. It then opened London’s Terry’s Theatre under the management of W. H. Griffiths beginning on 24 April 1897, but later transferred to the Vaudeville Theatre on 12 February 1898, running for a very successful total of 480 London performances.