La ronde de l'aube

Despite its many potential traps, melodrama has been done very well many times on film etc and even to classic level. Douglas Sirk was one of the kings when it came to directors that specialised in melodrama, with his generally realistic treatment of characters, lavish use of colour (some of his work didn't use that though) and far from held back approach to serious subjects being trademarks of his. Know Rock Hudson better from lighter fare, though he was far from inexperienced when it came to the more dramatic roles.

'The Tarnished Angels' is not one of Sirk's finest and there are better melodramas out there. It is a good representation of the actors though and Sirk generally is well served too, even if other films of his show off his trademark touches better. It is not hard to see why William Faulkner, author of the film's source material 'Pylon', thought very highly of 'The Tarnished Angels' and my opinion of it generally leans towards the positive reappraisal it's garnered overtime and not the panning it got from some at the time.

Sure, 'The Tarnished Angels' is not perfect. To me the final quarter is not as interesting as the rest of the film, resulting in some leaden pacing, and the sentiment gets blown into inflated proportions. The ending didn't ring true and felt far-fetched and unrealistically pat, like it was shoe-horned in from another film.

Hudson's character was very underwritten at times, rather embarrassingly so.

On the other hand, 'The Tarnished Angels' looks great. It is one of Sirk's most visually ambitious films, evident in the gorgeously haunting and wonderfully meticulous cinematography that is remarkably subtle at times. Dorothy Malone's look is admittedly anachronistic, with no attempt to make her look like a woman from the 30s where the film is set, but the production design is very handsome all the same. Frank Skinner's music score has a broodiness and melancholy without being too over-scored or too constant. Sirk directs with sensitivity but also understated passion. Personally thought on the most part that the script was fine, thought-probing, at times darkly humorous, at others uncompromisingly biting and at other times sincerely poignant. One of the better moments being Hudson's big monologue.

While the story has its faults later on and is unashamedly melodramatic, to me the emotional impact it had was intense and moving. A sensitive subject handled in a non-shying away fashion. The flying sequences are beautifully shot and excitingly staged. One could argue that the characters are not likeable and hard to care for, that is true but to me they came over as real people with real human conflicts all the same. The moral reversal of Burke and Roger is especially interesting. The acting is very good, even though Burke is underwritten Hudson gives it everything he's got especially in the aforementioned monologue. Robert Stack is a brooding presence while Jack Carson provides some welcome and not too misplaced levity. Malone is affecting in a way that doesn't get over the top.

Overall, well crafted film but didn't bowl me over. 7/10

Great for me to see this rarely-scheduled Douglas Sirk melodrama from his rich, late 50's period and it didn't disappoint. Taking as its subject the uncommon lifestyles of the participants in the popular flying-circus entertainments of the 20's and 30's, it's not long before the familiar Sirk themes of conflicting passions, human weakness and sacrifice raise their heads above the parapet.

For some reason shot in black and white, perhaps to better enhance the period setting, I still firmly believe that all Sirk's work should be seen in glorious colour, no one filled these CinemaScope screens better than he in the affluent 50's. Only just lasting 90 minutes, it crams a lot into its time-frame, drawing convincing character-sketches of the lead parties, Rock Hudson's maverick journalist, generous of spirit and loquacious but seeking love in the person of the beautiful, sexy Dorothy Malone parachutist extraordinaire, she frustrated by the lack of attention she and her son get from her obsessive pilot husband Robert Stack, who'd rather fly above the clouds than engage with earth-dwellers. Throw in his grease-monkey Jack Carson who may have had a fling with Malone in the past and hangs around as much for the scraps she throws him as his duty to Stack and a Mr Big aircraft-owner with designs of his own on Malone and you have an eternal quadrangle ripe for tragedy.

Sure enough, it happens along and spectacularly too, straightening out the lives of the survivors, even if not, I suspect for the better. The acting is first rate, Hudson again showing the depth that Sirk always seemed to draw out of him, handling long-speeches and a drunken scene with ease. Stack again displays his facility for acting against type, playing another emotionally stunted individual masquerading behind his good looks and bravura outlook. Malone however is the epicentre of the movie, the action revolves all around her and it's no wonder with her sexiness and sense of vulnerability, a killer combination for the menfolk here.

Sirk's direction is excellent, juxtaposing thrilling action sequences in the air with oddly contrasting backgrounds - it's no coincidence that the drama is played out in New Orleans at Mardi-Gras time, with the use of masks often showing up in foreground and background as a metaphor for the concealed passions on display here. There are several memorable scenes, like when Hudson and Malone's first illicit kiss is disturbed jarringly by a masked party-goer and Stack's adoring son trapped on a fairground airplane-ride just as his father loses control of his real-life plane.

So there you have it, another engrossing examination of fallible individuals, expertly purveyed by the best Hollywood director of drama in the 50's. Not as soap-sudsy as some of Sirk's other movies of the period, perhaps due to the literary source of the story, but engrossing from take-off to landing.

Hudson is mesmerising as newspaper reporter Burke Devlin who is besotted by fly-by-night characters, especially sultry daredevil parachutist LaVerne Schumann (Dorothy Malone). His character is worth all of the others put together. In the acting stakes too he shines brightly, adding nuance to his performance. Unfortunately the script is tarnished especially if we are to believe Hudson's infatuation for LaVerne who proves herself to be mostly unlovable. If you like Depression era dramas, that will help you enjoy this more. And if you like the early world of flying, that will help too. But mostly watch it for Rock Hudson's intelligent performance. Based on a story by William Faulkner.

Alone, during an all night boot camp fire midwatch in a huge, sepulchral building, at one o'clock in the morning I dared (had I gotten caught I'd have done a punishment tour at 'Happy Hour') to switch on the TV in the Master At Arms' office. On came the titles of 'The Tarnished Angels'.

I've been enthralled by it ever since.

It would be a revelation to get to see this film in CinemaScope, but it's one of those few films whose themes seem to be intensified by pan-and-scan: the characters' claustrophobic loneliness in a throng; the pressing anxiety of a child about his parentage; the narrowing, time-running-out bravado of the former war ace; the ache of the mechanic who can fix only aeroplanes but not his timorousness; the naked greed and lust of the depression mogul lucky to have been spared the worst of his era's depredations; the despair of the wife who followed a man and ended up jilted by his corpse, with no place to turn; and the outside-looking-in fascination, desolation, and crashed dreams of a reporter lying torpidly in a pond of bootleg hootch.

Atypical of director Sirk's opus 'The Tarnished Angels' shows his grasp of his medium in the haunting chiaroscuro of black & white, and in the edgy editing of the flying scenes that furnish the only relief from - or should that be masterful exacerbation of - the confining, torturous ties and jealousies, yearnings and flailings that bind the characters in existential angst.

Not much of a plot here, but the acting is to marvel at. Robert Stack's muscular, sexy, once-genuine hero turns to tin before your eyes. Dorothy Malone's aching milk-and-honey farm girl fecundity, horse-traded libido, and lovelessness struggle against the vast flush of the Depression's The Blight Stuff toilet in which her husband's sole skill is no life preserver for his family's plunge into life-and-death, give-and-give, take-and-take despair. Rock Hudson's goodhearted reporter, yearning to find some goodness in humankind, having his search thwarted by the grinder of want and need, loyalty and betrayal, helplessness and manipulation. The mogul frustrated because his only skill is heavy-handed buying and selling (played wonderfully by Robert Middleton - in a diabolical role that makes the bargain in 'Indecent Proposal' look frivolously angelic by comparison), whose physiognomy oozes reptilian menace that cloaks his unrelievable aching to possess one immutable, beautiful, worthy thing.

'The Tarnished Angels' left me feeling as wrung out as the overstressed airframes in its hell-for-leather air race scenes, and quite a bit more grown-up than I was before I'd seen its characters rooting round in the Depression gutters of abasement and debasement.

After my midwatch, near dawn, when I tumbled into my open-bay barracks rack, I couldn't sleep. I wished for an angel to hand me a tin of BrassO for my coming-of-age, tarnishing soul.

Depression-era newspaper reporter Rock Hudson (as Burke Devlin) rescues a boy from teasing, and returns him to his parents. As it turns out, nine-year-old Chris Olsen (as Jack) is the son of World War I hero Robert Stack (as Roger Shumann), who is using his piloting muscle in a New Orleans carnival act known as "The Flying Shumanns". Mr. Stack's wife, curvaceously beautiful blonde Dorothy Malone (as LaVerne), does a parachute stunt. And, the couple's mechanic, chubby Jack Carson (as Jiggs), keeps the plane's engine humming. The quartet appears hale and hearty, but are destitute when Mr. Carson spends their meager funds on a pair of boots. Instead of moving into a "Hooverville", they go to live in Mr. Hudson's small apartment.

Hudson, who drinks and smokes like a reporter should, wants to do a story on "The Flying Shumanns" for the Picayune.

In flashback, we learn Malone married Stack (whilst in the "family way") instead of Carson, who was the man teased for being young Olsen's real father in the opening segment. Carson is still in love with Malone, who seems to be torn between Hudson and Stack. But, that's not all. Stack's aviating rival, rotund Robert Middleton (as Matt Ord), is also in love with Malone. And, after a flying tragedy involving Stack and Middleton's pilot (Troy Donahue), Malone is sent to prostitute herself in exchange for a new plane (for Stack). This tests how much each of the men - Hudson, Stack, Carson, Middleton - love Malone.

And, it may also reveal who Malone will take to the closing credits…

William Faulkner's "The Tarnished Angels" reunites director Douglas Sirk and Hudson with two of their "Written on the Wind" (1956) co-stars, Malone and Stack. They are certainly attractive, but seem more like they are posturing for a 1950s (where these folks should have been put) glamour magazine than starring as 1930s New Orleans depression-era denizens. The most ludicrous sequence involves Malone showing off her underwear during an impossible to imagine parachute and swing stunt - the arm muscles required for this feat would be considerable. The carnival backdrop is a highlight, it's used well in the opening and climax.

****** The Tarnished Angels (11/21/57) Douglas Sirk ~ Rock Hudson, Dorothy Malone, Robert Stack, Jack Carson