Best known for her acting in hard-bitten melodramas, Ida Lupino may seem a curious choice to have directed this convent comedy, yet she brings a much-needed hard edge to what might otherwise have become another predictable journey down the road from rebellion to reformation. Hayley Mills is naughtier than in her Disney days, but much of her thunder is stolen by the debuting June Harding as her mousey friend. Mother Superior Rosalind Russell walks away with every scene she's in, but not even the dependable support of Binnie Barnes and Mary Wickes can atone for the cosiness of the conclusion.

Mary and her friend, Rachel, are new students at St. Francis Academy, a boarding school run by the iron fist of Mother Superior. The immature teens grow bored and begin playing pranks on both the unsuspecting nuns and their unpleasant classmates, becoming a constant thorn in Mother Superior's side. However, as the years pass, Mary and Rachel slowly mature and begin to see the nuns in a different light.