The Angel Wore Red

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.

"The Angel Wore Red" is a 1960 film that takes on the subject of the Spanish Civil War. It stars Dirk Bogarde, Ava Gardner, Joseph Cotten, Vittorio de Sica, and Finlay Currie. The Spanish Civil War is not an easy subject and unfortunately, the film only partially succeeds with Nunnally Johnson's script and under his direction.

A priest, Arturo Carrera (Dirk Bogarde) gives up the priesthood just as the war is starting and finds himself on the run from the Spanish Republicans, who accused the priests of indoctrinating their followers against them. Arturo slips into a cabaret in order to hide and meets Soledad (Gardner), an entertainer. Eventually, he falls for her, and both of them wind up being arrested. Meanwhile, both sides are searching for a sacred relic that is believed to have miraculous powers - it is said to have helped defeat Napoleon. The Bishop entrusted it to someone before the cathedral was destroyed. Each side wants it for its own reasons.

This is a very dark film - darkly photographed, and the sound is strange. I am glad someone else mentioned that it seemed as if it was dubbed. I could easily believe it was in Italian originally and dubbed in English, though that wasn't the case. The acting is excellent. Movie priests always look so darn good - Bogarde makes a handsome, romantic and gentle priest and gives a dynamic performance as a man who hasn't lost his faith in God, only in the church as a way to serve man. Ava Gardner is well cast. Some comments state she was "past it" etc. - though she looks older than Bogarde, which really doesn't make any difference, she also looks appropriate for the role she plays - Spanish, someone who's been around the block more than once, likes the nightlife and is not wealthy. She is not particularly well photographed, and in spots where she is, it's obvious that her beauty hasn't faded. All anyone has to do is see her in 1964's "Night of the Iguana" to realize what great beauty she still had. Vittoria di Sica plays General Clave; it's an odd performance, which is fitting because the man he plays is odd. Joseph Cotten to me is completely wasted as a news journalist in this movie and seems just inserted into the film. He's excellent, but the performance comes from nowhere.

In the end, "The Angel Wore Red" doesn't give us much understanding of the conflict, and the viewer feels almost as if he or she is entering in the middle of something. We're actually entering in the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, but nothing leads us up to it. Props to Johnson, however, for taking on such a weighty subject.

Dirk Bogarde was an amazingly talented actor--so much so that I specifically look for his films. However, despite MANY great films, he occasionally made a stinker...and "The Angel Wore Red" is one of them. The movie lost money and I can see exactly why.

The story is set just before the first days of the Spanish Civil War in 1936. Arturo (Bogarde) is a priest serving in Spain and he's disenchanted with the Church. He is so disenchanted that he leaves the priesthood. However, his timing sucks...as the Civil War breaks out and priests are being rounded up and shot! The new Socialist/Communist backed Republicans blame the Church for supporting the Nationalists....and folks are taking retribution of the priests, as they are in a Republican stronghold. Now Arturo has to flee for his life...as folks THINK he's still a priest.

During his time on the run, Arturo is aided by a 'girl of easy virtue' (Ava Gardner) and, inexplicably, the pair fall in love. Now this really does NOT make any sense and it happens way too quickly to be believable. To make it worse, often the film lets the pair just talk and talk and talk....and it's all quite sticky and sappy.

Later, Arturo is caught by the Republicans. They would rather not kill him, since they learned he left the priesthood, but instead of releasing him they force him to work with him. His unenviable task is to take confessions from the priests they are about to execute!! What's next for him and his new main squeeze?

Despite the story seeming rather anti-clerical and having a love affair between an ex-priest and 'good time girl' may seem very anti-clerical, the film actually takes a rather neutral view overall. Unlike many movies of the 1940s that were decidedly pro-Republic, this one shows the Republic a little more realistically...and the film hedges its bets by having Arturo learn to once again love the Church. Considering the Republicans were backed by Stalin and the Nationalists backed by Hitler, it wasn't exactly a war where one side was 'the good guy' and the other 'evil'....and the movie at least gets this part of the story right. Unfortunately, the love affair is unconvincing and the dialog silly and trite. Too bad...as Bogarde was simply better than the material they gave him.

This is a fascinating story with many aspects and undertones of fathomless depth and a very different view of the Spanish civil war than what is usually represented. The drama grips you at once, as the young priest leaves the church demonstratively in protest, which immediately throws you into an interesting development of character and events, as the civil war breaks out. Joseph Cotten is an American journalist who gives the drama a form, but Ava Gardner is the central figure, 'the angel in red', a prostitute in a night club which the unfrocked priest finds himself at home in. Another character is Aldo Fabrizi, who here repeats his martyrdom from "Rome, open city" as the carrier of the one holy thing still remaining as a hope for the people, a relic with a drop of a saint's blood with apparently tremendous national meaning to both believers and non-believers. On top of it all there is Vittorio de Sica as the general who better than anyone else sees through the utter absurdity and madness of this civil war.

It is possibly the best film of the Spanish civil war that has been made, in spite of its foibles, as it presents a fairer and broader insight into the war than any other film I have seen on this bloody mess, which almost went on from 1936 until the year of the second world war, as an introduction. The love story is totally convincing and 'organic', as Polanski would have said, but the pathos of the film is tremendous, almost giving a documentary presentation of the war but from below, from the view of common people, a prostitute, a defrocked priest and innocent victims. It's like one of Graham Greene's best novels, but the music adds an extra dimension of beauty and infinite suffering and sorrow as well, like to the shocking war pictures of Goya. It's a great film, it can't be denied, and its lacks and wants are not enough to reduce anything of its deeply human and fascinating greatness.

The Angel Wore Red is one of the few films in the English speaking world that deals with the Spanish Civil War. It takes an even handed approach to the conflict as well.

The military high command in the Spanish Republic withdrew its support from the civil government that came into power after the Spanish monarchy was overthrown in 1931. The Nationalist had disciplined troops and the backing of the Catholic Church. The Republican government cobbled together an army and it fought as best it could from 1936 to 1939.

Dirk Bogarde decides to leave the church at the worst possible time when the city he was posted to is under siege. Those left wing folks occupying the city were very anti-Catholic and they were rounding up priests as spies for the Nationalists. When the Nationalists take the city he's got a problem with them in that they don't quite buy him either. The only one who seems to get him is Ava Gardner playing a bar entertainer who gets by the best she can. When you've been celibate you can imagine how intense it must have been.

There's also a religious relic that the church has, a drop of blood from St.John the Divine. Both sides want to possess it.

This tale is told from neutral correspondent Joseph Cotten who with his eye patch is modeled on Floyd Gibbons. He's quite cynical about the war and is not believing all the fuss about this religious relic. But the phenomenon is there for him to report.

According to Lee Server's biography of Ava Gardner, both she and Bogarde were most dissatisfied with how MGM distributed the film. Both felt they did good work and they did and wished more had seen the film.

It's something you should see if you can.