Entertaining Angels: The Dorothy Day Story

Overview:

Director: Michael Ray Rhodes

Writer (WGA): John Wells

Release Date: 27 September 1996 (USA)

User Rating: 5.9/10

Actors: Moira Kelly, Martin Sheen, Lenny Von Dohlen

Plot Summary:

“Entertaining Angels: The Dorothy Day Story” is a 1996 independent film about the life of Dorothy Day, the journalist turned social activist and founder of the Catholic Worker newspaper. Once she turns Catholic she starts to understand and help the homeless by providing them with food, clothes, and shelter from her own pocket. Not only that, she also fought for their rights. She is compared with Mother Teresa, but unfortunately only a few of people have ever heard of Dorothy Day. The phrase “entertaining angels” refers to the practice of treating all guests-be they kings or peasants-as if they were visiting angels.

Critics Views:

“Focuses on her early years as a Bohemian journalist, a suffragette and an unwed mother.” Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat

“Dorothy Day remains a wonderfully fascinating and inspirational historical figure and though the films may serve as a rudimentary introduction for those unfamiliar with her work, it hardly does justice to her complex legacy and accomplishments.”

“Although you couldn't call it subtle, "Entertaining Angels," a new biopic of the late Catholic social activist Dorothy Day, is a well-intended and usually well-staged effort to dramatize the life of a woman whom some expect to be canonized in the not too distant future.” -David Armstrong

“The first hour, 1917-33, rushes through too much placard-waving social history, rendered in nicely composed but familiar umbra washes. The second deals at tedious length with Day's conflicting commitment to the poor, her daughter and the paper.”- WH