Fallen Angel/Angel Face
My only real exposure to the films of Otto Preminger have been within the last five months-the two films being "Anatomy of a Murder" and "Laura." The former film (a great three hour courtroom drama with James Stewart) I got off netflix, while "Laura," I managed to see at the Film Forum's NYC Noir festival last July. Here are my thoughts to "Laura," as well as the other film playing during that double feature "The Woman in the Window," right here.
Once again thanks to the Film Forum I have the chance to see several of Preminger's work during their retrospective of his work lasting until January 17th (although the timing for me couldn't be worse.) I did manage to head out today for the noir double feature "Fallen Angel" from 1945, and "Angel Face" from 1952. "Fallen Angel," released through 20th Century Fox, Preminger's choice company at the time, with "Angel Face" released through RKO. I walked into "Fallen Angel" like I do many of the films I've never seen before at the Film Forum-without knowing a thing about it. Not the year, the stars, not the plot. And it works this way best sometimes-after all I was completely fresh with anything that was about to happen, and a film like this one deserves to let itself unfold before you. So read my minor plot description with some hesitation if you must. "Fallen Angel" returns Preminger with his "Laura" star Dana Andrews, as Eric Stanton, a drifter who gets involved with a mind reader played by John Carradine (who oddly enough, disappears about thirty minutes in, with the story taking a different turn.) Soon enough, Eric gets involved with Stella, a mysterious waitress at a counter coffee shop that he finds himself in. Deciding that he needs money before marrying Stella, Eric begins to frequent the company of June Mills, one of the very rich Mills sisters, deciding to use her for her money. And then his plan takes an unexpected twist.
Despite this being a rather lesser known noir, I enjoyed it greatly, although I was a bit skewed by the beginning subplot involving the mind reader. While it does introduce the Eric character to the Mills Sisters, Stella, as well as the diner setting itself, it was almost a sloppy way of doing it, and even a bit cheap. There are several other ways that this could have been done instead of introducing us to a stock character, and than never bringing it back. other than that there isn't much to complain about-Preminger does sometimes try to equal his success with "Laura," which came out the year before, by using similar crew-Andrews is not only back, but also the David Raksin score which was just a bit more haunting in "Laura." It's similar to Fritz Lang's "The Woman in the Window," and then his follow up "Scarlet Street," which used three of the same actors (Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett, and Dan Duryea). But no matter how much I still think about it, "Scarlet Street" didn't come close to "The Woman in the Window."
The second film was "Angel Face," from 1952, starring Robert Mitchum and Jean Simmons. Mitchum is an emergency vehicle driver named Frank who gets involved with Simmons' Diane at the scene of her stepmothers "accident." Frank slowly gets involved with Diane, leaves his current girlfriend (who of course is the image of perfection), and then gets wrapped up (of course) into a murder scheme. With most of these old films, you know how the ending will turn up-and it is usually the journey that makes it worthwhile. But I will admit that the final two minutes of "Angel Face" took a turn that I did not see coming, but when thought about it would be the only way for it to end.
Besides having the word "angel" in both the titles, both being directed by the same man, and both of them being in the noir genre, both of the movies also perfectly tell stories of men that suffer, or come close to suffering, there eminent downfall because of a woman-the aptly named femme fatale-and this was a popular method of storytelling in this period of time, when the film noir was at its peak. Lately, thanks to the Turner Classic Movie channel, I've been seeing several William A. Wellman films-the pre-code ones between 1930 and 1934. Almost all of the ones I've seen-"Night Nurse," "Midnight Mary," "Lily Turner," and a few others, all feature such prominent and strong female leads, a type of character that also seemed to disappear for a while, or at least become a bit more sporadic. It's been interesting to see how the focus of genres, types of characters, etc. changed over such a short amount of time-a mere ten years in this case.
Getting a little off topic there, sadly the double feature today will end up changing tomorrow, but these are two films well worth seeing on video-and I do recommend seeing them back to back, as they are both available on video. And check out the other films that will be playing at the Preminger festival in the coming two weeks, and I'll do my best to see some and recommend them.
Final Grade-
"Fallen Angel" (1945)-*** of ****
"Angel Face" (1952)-*** of ****
Once again thanks to the Film Forum I have the chance to see several of Preminger's work during their retrospective of his work lasting until January 17th (although the timing for me couldn't be worse.) I did manage to head out today for the noir double feature "Fallen Angel" from 1945, and "Angel Face" from 1952. "Fallen Angel," released through 20th Century Fox, Preminger's choice company at the time, with "Angel Face" released through RKO. I walked into "Fallen Angel" like I do many of the films I've never seen before at the Film Forum-without knowing a thing about it. Not the year, the stars, not the plot. And it works this way best sometimes-after all I was completely fresh with anything that was about to happen, and a film like this one deserves to let itself unfold before you. So read my minor plot description with some hesitation if you must. "Fallen Angel" returns Preminger with his "Laura" star Dana Andrews, as Eric Stanton, a drifter who gets involved with a mind reader played by John Carradine (who oddly enough, disappears about thirty minutes in, with the story taking a different turn.) Soon enough, Eric gets involved with Stella, a mysterious waitress at a counter coffee shop that he finds himself in. Deciding that he needs money before marrying Stella, Eric begins to frequent the company of June Mills, one of the very rich Mills sisters, deciding to use her for her money. And then his plan takes an unexpected twist.
Despite this being a rather lesser known noir, I enjoyed it greatly, although I was a bit skewed by the beginning subplot involving the mind reader. While it does introduce the Eric character to the Mills Sisters, Stella, as well as the diner setting itself, it was almost a sloppy way of doing it, and even a bit cheap. There are several other ways that this could have been done instead of introducing us to a stock character, and than never bringing it back. other than that there isn't much to complain about-Preminger does sometimes try to equal his success with "Laura," which came out the year before, by using similar crew-Andrews is not only back, but also the David Raksin score which was just a bit more haunting in "Laura." It's similar to Fritz Lang's "The Woman in the Window," and then his follow up "Scarlet Street," which used three of the same actors (Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett, and Dan Duryea). But no matter how much I still think about it, "Scarlet Street" didn't come close to "The Woman in the Window."
The second film was "Angel Face," from 1952, starring Robert Mitchum and Jean Simmons. Mitchum is an emergency vehicle driver named Frank who gets involved with Simmons' Diane at the scene of her stepmothers "accident." Frank slowly gets involved with Diane, leaves his current girlfriend (who of course is the image of perfection), and then gets wrapped up (of course) into a murder scheme. With most of these old films, you know how the ending will turn up-and it is usually the journey that makes it worthwhile. But I will admit that the final two minutes of "Angel Face" took a turn that I did not see coming, but when thought about it would be the only way for it to end.
Besides having the word "angel" in both the titles, both being directed by the same man, and both of them being in the noir genre, both of the movies also perfectly tell stories of men that suffer, or come close to suffering, there eminent downfall because of a woman-the aptly named femme fatale-and this was a popular method of storytelling in this period of time, when the film noir was at its peak. Lately, thanks to the Turner Classic Movie channel, I've been seeing several William A. Wellman films-the pre-code ones between 1930 and 1934. Almost all of the ones I've seen-"Night Nurse," "Midnight Mary," "Lily Turner," and a few others, all feature such prominent and strong female leads, a type of character that also seemed to disappear for a while, or at least become a bit more sporadic. It's been interesting to see how the focus of genres, types of characters, etc. changed over such a short amount of time-a mere ten years in this case.
Getting a little off topic there, sadly the double feature today will end up changing tomorrow, but these are two films well worth seeing on video-and I do recommend seeing them back to back, as they are both available on video. And check out the other films that will be playing at the Preminger festival in the coming two weeks, and I'll do my best to see some and recommend them.
Final Grade-
"Fallen Angel" (1945)-*** of ****
"Angel Face" (1952)-*** of ****
posted by Eric at
5:51 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home