Fallen Angel

No need to repeat the plot. The screen really pulsates when Darnell appears. That opening shot of her in a big hat and cheap dress, hiking up her skirt tells us all we need to know. Too bad the rest is a disappointment. According to IMDb, a number of production folks were unhappy with the final cut by head honcho Zanuck. Maybe that's why the story lacks focus, meandering from one character to another to no particular purpose. Nor do I see anything like Preminger's usual languid, moody style in the results. Instead, the scenes merely accumulate without building. For example, Carradine's phony spiritualist looks promising, but is quickly dropped. And why is King Kong's Cabot stuck in a brief part that any number of no-names could have handled, unless a number of his scenes were cut.

It doesn't help that Andrews plays one of the most dislikable central characters (Eric Stanton) in noir. In my book, there's nothing redeeming about his fast-talking operator at any level, which makes the sugary June's (Faye) abject devotion all the more unbelievable. Noir protagonists are generally a moral mix that makes them more interesting than the usual one-dimensional hero of the period. Just as importantly, they manage a redeeming quality at some level. Stanton, however, is a heel through and through. As a result, the movie fails to provide a crucial center of gravity to identify with. But, whatever the reason and despite some good scenes usually involving Darnell, the movie remains a meandering disappointment.

Sure, 'Fallen Angel's' plot is full of holes and improbabilities - but what noir isn't full of them?! Indeed much of the appeal and frisson of the genre stems from its tales' and characters' nightmarish, inexplicable irrationality.

The almost always underrated Dana Andrews is superb here in a brilliantly understated performance: by posture, tilt of head, and deft deployment of his eyes he communicates more than most actors manage to tell with their whole scenery-chewing bodies; and Alice Faye kept me guessing: was her June the "still water runs deep" character whodunit? Most of all there's 'Fallen Angel's peerless camera-work and direction that raise it a notch or two above the rather overrated 'Laura' - whose plot sometimes drags and which is chiefly rescued by the literate, finicky presence of Clifton Webb; and Gene Tierney's mannered, diffident, and albeit mysterious Laura isn't half the hard-boiled noir femme fatale that Linda Darnell's Stella is in 'Fallen Angel.' There's another lovely, understated effort here from Bruce Cabot and still another from Percy Kilbride; but in the supporting cast Anne Revere stands out for moving the plot along, for creating tangible suspense, and for two solid moments of palpable nape-prickling foreboding.

'Fallen Angel' is just one of the most underrated noirs. Period.

Just one question I'd like to put: when Dana Andrews enters the hotel auditorium during the spook show, is the blonde woman, seated on the aisle one row behind the brunette (Adele Jergens, uncredited) woman Andrews asks to shift over, his future 'The Best Years Of Our Lives' co-star Virginia Mayo? She sure looks like Mayo.

By the way, the recent 'Fallen Angel' DVD release commentary track by noir maven Eddie Muller is gracefully enhanced by his pairing with with Dana Andrews' daughter Susan Andrews.

Drifter Dana Andrews hops off a bus on a lonely night in a little coastal town. He walks into a diner called Pop's and makes himself at home. It's not long before Andrews encounters two women:

Sultry Linda Darnell is Stella, a waitress at Pop's. She is hot stuff--every man who meets her instantly falls in love. Andrews catches Stella's attention pretty easily but she's not interested in a man with only one dollar in his pocket. He tells her he knows where he can get $12,500--and starts hanging around...

Prim Alice Faye, who lives with her sister in a large house that their father has left them. Andrews has discovered that Faye and sister share a $25,000 estate just waiting to be cashed in. He befriends and pursues her, planning to marry her, grab her money, and run off with Darnell.

Dana Andrews is kind of a rat in this story. The men he meets at Pop's are equally unsavory: Salesman Bruce Cabot, who seems to be Stella's current boyfriend; former policeman Charles Bickford, crotchety and vaguely menacing; and Pop himself, Percy Kilbride, who is even more obsessed with Stella than everybody else.

Darnell is outstanding as Stella, and it helps that she gets the best close ups and dialog. Alice Faye, on the other hand, has a role that is just not convincing....why does she fall for such an obvious crook as Andrews? We just don't know. (The theory that studio brass insisted on boosting Darnell's role at Faye's expense seems to make sense, though--if Faye's part was cut way down, no wonder she seems like such a dolt.)

Andrews gives a good performance as the scheming, dreaming, irresistible drifter...his sometimes-despicable character is indeed almost sympathetic. Anne Revere has a small but important role as Faye's not-so-gullible sister.

The plot includes not only Andrews's wicked plans but other characters' jealous schemes as well, leading up to an eventual murder. The picture's pace is deliberate but never boring; it seems like no matter which combination of characters is on screen, we are watching them do their best to deceive and dissemble.

Not completely satisfying but definitely worthwhile, especially for the beautiful photography and Darnell's breezy command of all these men's emotions.

Those who wish to place Otto Preminger in the pantheon of great film auteurs can certainly point to this stylish film as a splendid example of the director's talent at its prime during his Twentieth Century Fox contract years before he became famous as the self-promoting independent director/producer of controversial, censorship-busting films. Back in 1945, however, he had the good fortune to be surrounded by many of the best technicians Daryl Zanuck had hired --foremost among them here, the staff cinematographer Joe LaShelle (Oscar for "Laura") whose shadowy lighting and inventive long moving camera takes add enormously to the "noir" atmosphere of this film. As always, there is no way to tell whether LaShelle or Preminger came up with these unusual images, but they are exceptionally effective.bWhat's more, the film is perfectly cast down to the smallest role: Linda Darnell is particularly effective as the slutty tough girl who knows what she wants; and middle-aged Alice Faye, having put on a little weight since her Don Ameche musical days, looks and acts exactly like a lonely and desperate small-town woman who can't help loving the wrong man. Unfortunately, the screenplay has even more holes in it than the average swiss-cheese film noir of its day. Andrews enters the scene as an obvious drifter and con man and does nothing from then on to change anyone's opinion of him. Despite his lack of money and sleaziness, we are asked to believe that no woman, however pious or promiscuous, can resist him. If you are willing to suspend lots and lots of disbelief, this film has many wonderful atmospheric moments expertedly staged by the Viennese director Today, lots of people think of Preminger as the consummate cinematic con-artist. In this film, for once, the artist outweighed the con.

Otto Preminger rarely gets credit for being one of the founding fathers of film noir; in addition to this film, there's of course Laura, and Angel Face, Where the Sidewalk Ends, the Thirteenth Letter, and other films with a heavy noir influence (Man with the Golden Arm). Fallen Angel's least interesting aspect (interestingly) is its murder plot. The tainted, ambiguous relationships that Dana Andrews forges when he drifts into a California coastal village make this film a dark study in romantic pathology. It also features Linda Darnell at her most sultry and mercenary; Alice Faye (her only appearance, I think, in the noir cycle); John Carradine; Charles Bickford (as a policeman with a past); Ann Revere (whom most of us think of as a tenement mom to John Garfield); and even Percy Kilbride before his Pa Kettle days. Andrews' very layered tension between rich good gal Faye and gold-digging bad girl Darnell keeps the viewer off balance all the way through.