Editing The Song of Bernadette (film) (section)

==Historical accuracy==
The film's plot follows the novel by [[Franz Werfel]], which is not a documentary but a historical novel blending fact and fiction.  Bernadette's real-life friend Antoine Nicolau is portrayed as being deeply in love with her and vowing to remain unmarried when Bernadette enters the convent.  No such relationship is documented as existing between them. In addition, the government authorities, in particular, Imperial Prosecutor Vital Dutour (played by [[Vincent Price]]) are portrayed as being much more anti-religion than they actually were;<ref>{{cite book| last=Trochu| first=François| title=Saint Bernadette Soubirous: 1844–1879| publisher=Tan Books| date=January 1, 1957| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8VZODQAAQBAJ&q=Saint+Bernadette+Soubirous| isbn=978-1787201194}} Trochu provides background information on Bernadette's "inquisitors", revealing that they were not atheists or even freethinkers.</ref> in fact, Dutour was himself a devout [[Catholic]] who simply thought Bernadette was hallucinating. Other portrayals come closer to historical accuracy, particularly [[Anne Revere]] and [[Roman Bohnen]] as Bernadette's overworked parents, [[Charles Bickford]] as [[Dominique Peyramale|Father Peyramale]]  (although his presence at Bernadette's deathbed was an artistic embellishment; in reality, Peyramale had died a few years before Bernadette), and [[Blanche Yurka]] as formidable Aunt Bernarde.

The portrayal of Sister [[Marie Therese Vauzou]] is also inaccurate.  There is no evidence that Sister Vazou was Bernadette’s elementary school teacher or that they met prior to the time that Bernanette entered the convent.

The film combines the characters of Vital Dutour and the man of letters Hyacinthe de La Fite, who appears in the novel and believes he has [[cancer of the larynx]]. La Fite does not appear at all in the movie. In the film, it is Dutour who is dying of cancer of the larynx at the end, and who goes to the Lourdes shrine, kneels at the gates to the grotto and says, "Pray for me, Bernadette."

The film ends with the death of Bernadette and does not mention the exhumation of her body or her [[canonization]], as the novel does.