Everybody loves Christmas carols and everyone loves Christmas movies, but did you ever consider how your favorite films use your favorite music? Tenth in a 12-part series.

Maybe just one more Bing Crosby number? Leo McCarey’s The Bells of St. Mary’s (1945) marked Crosby’s second turn at playing Father O’Malley – after winning his Best Actor Oscar for Going My Way the previous year – and this semi-sequel, with its benignly scheming nuns and subtle Christmas undertones, is still-worthy successor to the proud original. It even earned Crosby another Best Actor nomination, as well as nods for Ingrid Bergman, McCarey and more.

Bells is a sleepy movie, even by Crosby’s standards – there’s a gentleness to the pacing and the performances that’s right in keeping with a Christmas Eve screening, if you were so inclined. And while there’s nothing specifically holiday-themed about the title tune, it’s earned a place in the Christmas songbook just the same. Maybe it’s that voice, maybe it’s the delicate tinkling of the bells that opens the number. Heck, maybe it’s the fact that it’s sung by a priest and some nuns. Whatever the reason, it fits the season.