The Angel Wore Red

I thought this film was rather lacking in both narrative and film-making technique. The script is far from awful, but also far from interesting in the most part. As the previous reviewer says, the lighting, choice of shots etc. was jarring and obscured characters (Joseph Cotten, who indeed established no presence at all in this film partly due to this). The historical period examined is a curious if comendable choice, and while the general details are correctly conveyed, no attempt is really made to discuss the issues in much depth. Good to see neither of the two sides particularly favoured, although such a commitment might have added at least some drama. Drama is scant in the film, with a few scenes written as exposition, delivered in a way just as stilted.

The film actually has a rather good and eclectic cast for 1960, although the talents are ill used. Finlay Currie, Vittorio De Sica (well, seemingly in the main part a director), Dirk Bogarde (not yet of the stature achieved in films like "The Servant" and "Accident"), Joseph Cotten and Ava Gardner are all of some talent. De Sica's character who does indeed speak in a rather un-Italian, mid-Atlantic accent, which either suggests dubbing or a remarkably odd decision somewhere along the line - the character is portrayed as a Spanish patriot. The character's endless minor disparaging comments about modern warfare are mildly amusing in their frequency. I wouldn't say Ava Gardner is at all "past her prime" in this film, at about 37. Her performance is actually quite good, although lacking some credibility, and there are some pretty reasonable quiet scenes between her and Bogarde. Her beauty seems to have matured well, although the murky, technically below-par direction doesn't help this to show. Bogarde seemed quite good at times, but far from indelible or memorable in this role.

I would say this film is reasonably watchable and far from abject, but it is largely far from gripping or interesting.

Rating:- **/*****

There's an interesting story here on a number of levels but at roughly 1:40 minutes there's not enough time to tell them all well, which it tries to do. Really didn't understand the point of Joseph Cotten's journalist, even as an expository device. I'll leave criticisms or praise of the treatment of the civil war to others with more than the passing knowledge I have. Someone noted the cramped and dark cinematography, which worked for some scenes but not what might have been some of the more grand-scale scenes, which looked like they were cropped or framed so as not to admit incongruous sites or things into the shots. The lovers are a bit too aware of their fate it seems for them to have a realistic relationship. This one's OK for a watch but for characters bound up in a tragic relationship during revolution and civil war, it is no Dr. Zhivago.

Despite some obvious flaws I regard this film as a major achievement. The first obvious problem is the dubbing. Vittorio De Sica, a great actor is dubbed in English by a run of the mill voice over technician. The film suffers from being a joint Anglo/American- Italian production.

But it is one of the most mature treatments of a political historical theme that I have ever seen. Neither the loyalists nor the Franco led rebels are spared. Both are essentially brutal totalitarians. The Catholic Church is not spared either. Churchmen are showed to be so out of touch with their flock as to be almost comical, and yet when finally knocked off their pedestal they recover their Christianity. Dirk Bogard gives a subtle and brilliant performance as the tortured young priest. Ava Gardner is perfect as the cynical and yet innocent prostitute. It is actually to her advantage that she played this role at 37 rather than ten years earlier. She would simply been too overpoweringly beautiful to have been fully creditable in the part. Aldo Frabrizzi's part may be too reminiscent of his role in Open City especially at the end. Vittorio De Sica seems to have been doing an imitation of Claude Raines in Casablanca. It would have been good to have heard those two great actors in their native Italian. Joseph Cotton as the one eyed jaded reporter gives a broad yet compelling interpretation. The films failings pale in comparison to its overriding importance.

Though far from perfect, I could watch this movie again, and perhaps even more than that. It's a fascinating movie, for one thing, pairing two of the most beautiful people who ever lived, in a story with real depth, or at least the promise of real depth, which says a lot in a world where 99 movies out of 100 don't even try. Imagine, complaining that at 37, Ava Gardner was "past her prime." It is wonderful to see Bogarde, whose roles usually had him sneering worldly-wise ironies, showing heartfelt passion for the good and the true. It is equally wonderful to see Gardner in a role far more suited for her than the calculating charmer or the tormented playgirl. She never seemed to be really trying until this one, where perhaps the part touched something deep in her. Their chemistry was superlative, their love scene one of the greats of all time, in my view.

That this portrayal of a love that goes beyond time and place occurs in the context of one of the most astonishingly wicked and absurd wars of all time is another sublimity that seems to have whizzed right by all but one of the previous reviewers. Hemingway showed only that Robert Jordan thought the war was absurd, he didn't show its absurdity, which director Nunnally Johnson managed to do here in both direction and dialog, and against great odds. Like another of my favorites, Viva Zapata, this movie is a flawed masterpiece, better by far than 100 polished banalities. Blame its flaws on the trials of filming in 1960 (still stuck in the 50s), on sloppy editing, on the meaningless title, and the inevitable hurdles that writers and directors have to overcome in the complicated and difficult art of film-making, truly daunting in the case of this film. (Imagine attempting to film a love story between a priest and a prostitute in 50s Sicily?!) Don't blame the the actors, the director, or the beautiful and poignant story.

This film has an abiding place in my film canon, for one very good reason.

It isn't a great film, as both the other IMDb reviewers have gone out of their way to stress (although some of their criticisms were a little unfair. I thought, for example, that Joseph Cotten fared better than they say). However, it is virtually the only entertainment vehicle I have ever seen - including film, TV, radio, newspaper, magazine - that dares to show the truth about the left-wing Republicans/anti-Nationalists in the Spanish Civil War.

The Spanish Republicans have been lionised for decades for their allegedly heroic struggle against fascism (although it is actually a moot point to what extent Franco's Nationalists were fascist). However, this film is brave enough to show the truth - that the Spanish Republicans singled out religious targets and many harmless middle class targets and killed or persecuted them. It also dares to show the truth that the Republicans ran the areas they controlled along Stalinist lines. Which is not surprising, given the links with Communists and Stalinist Russia that some of them had.

The file deserves enormous credit for showing this, and it is a shame that no-one has pointed this out on IMDb - until now.