A film about seeing and believing. Capra wedges a scathing critique of divinity-for-dollars into a Depression-era melodrama about a female evangelist (Barbara Stanwyck) who fleeces the faithful in spectacular religious sideshows. When she falls in love with a blind songwriter, it is he who performs the miracle: she sees the light. Capra's crowds are a haunting array of fools worshipping false idols; but if his long shots reveal a nation of sheep, his closeups expose his ironic compassion. Who better understands the lure of the spectacle than a moviemaker? Bitter Capra criticism outweighs the Capra-corn of this early-thirties oddity that links language with power in a very timely way. Biblical sayings and slogans riddle the walls of the evangelical offices (“Smile, this is a happy church”), belied by the presence of cripples who are paid by the staged miracle cure. But if language and spectacle are no longer to be trusted, then perhaps The Miracle Woman is a film that self-destructs at its own fiery climax.