Angel's Flight

*spoilers*

"Angel's Flight" is like a bad hangover...so sweaty, dark, and gritty, you'll feel like taking a shower when it's over. Although its strongest foothold is in the noir ethos, the film could also be regarded as an early prototype to what we now know as the slasher subgenre(with a fat pinch of sexploitation for good measure).

The late Indus Arthur is lovely in this, her film debut, portraying Liz... a stripper with a childlike innocence who is driven to murder when aroused by men. It's eventually revealed that her psychosis is the sad result of a memory-repressed violent rape which occurred years earlier. William Thourlby(the original Marlboro Man and star of the cult classic "The Creeping Terror")plays a crapulent writer being used as bait by the authorities in an investigation of the killings. He unexpectedly finds ill-starred romance with the pitiable, knee-jerk murderess, and aims to seek professional help for her dangerously burdened mental state.

ANGEL'S FLIGHT is better than one might expect...an ugly, unhappy trip into the seedy underbelly of L. A.'s long-gone Bunker Hill area, once the gateway to the Angel's Flight railway system where much of this was filmed, likely without permits. Don't blink, or you'll miss future Golden Girl Rue McClanahan's bit as stumbling barfly. The film ends abruptly(possibly unfinished?) with key matters left unresolved, but I still recommend this rather oddball rarity to fans of skid row noir\neo-noir.

5/10.