Tarnished Angel

There's a context to "Tarnished Angel" that many folks today might miss. In the 1920s, the biggest traveling evangelist was Aimee Semple McPherson. She was HUGE but ultimately many folks came to doubt her sincerity and allegations of all sorts of naughty behaviors reduced much of her fame and public adoration. As a result, a few years later, Frank Capra and Barbara Stanwyck made "The Miracle Woman" (1931)...an exposee of a lady evangelist who was in reality a fake. It was obviously modeled after McPherson, but for legal reasons they denied it was a veiled biography of her and her work.

In addition to this influence, I think the early Claude Rains film, "The Clairvoyant" (1935) must have influenced the writing of "Tarnished Angel". Rains plays a fake mentalist who, inexplicably, develops the real ability to tell the future...which horrified him when he saw death in some of his patrons! This sort of revelation is important to "Tarnished Angel".

"Tarnished Angel" begins with a police raid on a gambling clip joint. Carol (Sally Eilers) manages to escape and the man behind the raid is intent on catching her one day, as she is a crook. Later, Carol attends an evangelistic meeting just for the free food. After all, she is really down and out. But the meeting gives her the idea to reinvent herself....posing as a fake miracle worker who can heal the sick. Not surprisingly, she pays shills to pretend to be disabled and in the meetings she 'heals' them! But 'Sister Connie' is no dummy and soon is able to gain respectability...and even admits in one of her meetings that she was once a 'bad girl' named Carol! This fake sincerity act works like a charm....and soon all sorts of people believe in her and her cause....except for that cop who knows what sort she really is. Where does all this go next? See the film.

While the film did pull its punches at the end, this is an excellent B-movie. While the budget was relatively low, the actors mostly second-tier and the running time just over an hour (all hallmarks of a B), it is far better than you'd expect. It also is rather timeless, as the story, sadly, isn't so unusual today with some very famous fake faith healers being exposed in recent years.

By the way, the word 'cripple' is used a lot. Of course it's not politically correct to say that...but crooks would use words like that, so it added to the realism.