Engel der Straße

Street Angel (1928)

What a great surprise!

Just as sound was all the talk and all the necessity of Hollywood, and just as Fox Studios has released a quasi-sound masterpiece in the fall of 1927 called "Sunrise," a few months later comes "Street Angel" continuing in a silent mode from Fox's great director Frank Borzage. And it's lively, fast, well acted, and frankly terrific.

Janet Gaynor above all, like Lilian Gish in her films, lifts this story through sheer acting and screen presence. She's a live wire and a tender victim, a fun and emotional and interesting person. This comes across without the supposed exaggerations of silent cinema, and is enough to make you forget the silence completely. Her partner in all this, Charles Farrell, is also good, though a bit stiff and pretty like Gary Cooper would be a decade later.

Equally terrific is the filming--the photography and editing, and the necessary set design and atmospheric effects (night, fog, great heights, tiny rooms). Photographer Ernest Palmer had already made a slew of films at Fox and was at the top of his game, and he had just worked with Borzage (and Gaynor and Farrell) in the equally well made "7th Heaven" the year before. It's beautiful, glowing, subtle stuff.

The plot? More interesting that you'd expect at first, and more complex, though with a strand of inevitable sweetness, too. The title refers to a prostitute, and streetwalking girls are a recurring part of the film, from the fringes. The place is Italy in the 1920s, and Gaynor plays Angela who turns to the street to try to get enough money to save her mother's life. Things quickly spin out of control from there, with jail and a small time circus and a life of impoverishment in Naples for our two leads. Temporarily. Farrell plays a painter with some talent but imperfect ambition and no business sense, so promise turns to heartache. And then things shift again.

If there is anything constant in this movie it is the good inner souls of the main characters, and so you suspect they will at least have a chance of surviving the hardship that seems to never quite be their own fault. I'm sure most of the audience identified with that then, just as I could now. The scenes are really dramatic, the interactions between the actors completely fresh and honest, and the photography fluid and modern. Yes, it's a sentimental "old" movie, still, of course, but with so much going on so well, you'll be glad.

Frank Borzage's films often take place in Europa ."Seventh Heaven" took the audience to France before and during WW1.And in the talkies era ,many of his works were depictions of Germany("Little Man What Now?" "Three Comrades" "Mortal Storm" ).

"Street Angel" is a Neapolitan effort.The follow -up to "Seventh Heaven" ,with the same actors ,its first part is a bit erratic,recalling "Heaven" but without its focus and its intensity.But by the second third ,the movie really takes off ;it grabs you when Gino and Angela move into their small apartment in Napoli.And when the girl,about to be arrested,is given one hour's grace,Borzage's movie turns sublime.This hour ...this hour....If it were only for that scene,Janet Gaynor would deserve her AA hands down.This is really one of the most beautiful love scenes I have ever seen: you should see the actress smile ,laugh through her tears ,her intense happiness which she knows will be short-lived: and doing that without any words is a feat which is even more impressive today.

Other remarkable scenes: When Angela is in Jail ,and Gino is desperately searching for her,the director makes a stunning use of the shadows.

The misty harbor "where there are plenty of them (street angels)" where the lovers meet again.

And last but not least ,the painting ("You should not have sold it,it was our guardian angel" ) which plays a prominent part in the plot ;the final harrowing scene in the church is Gina's redemption.A sequence to rival the best of Murnau's "Daybreak" .

Frank Borzage is the poet of the lovers who've got to fight against a hostile world."On the street ,you will find people whose love and pain make great" the director tells us before his story begins.

Janet Gaynor stars as the "street angel," a euphemism for prostitute, in this lushly romantic silent film. Of course Gaynor is really not a woman of the streets, but is convicted up this crime and stealing money from a lunch counter, which she does out of desperation to save her sick mother. She escapes the police however and hides out with a traveling circus. She becomes part of the troupe and meets a vagabond artist (Charles Farrell) and falls in love.

His love for her inspires him to create a great painting of her. This art gets him a muralist job with the city. On the verge of marriage, the police find her and take her to prison. Farrell doesn't know what's happened to her and his life is destroyed until a chance meeting on the foggy shores of Naples.

Janet Gaynor is superb as the street angel, quite able to show passion despite her youth and she looks great. Charles Farrell is OK as the artist. Henry Armetta is one of the circus performers, and Natalie Kingston is the mean prostitute.

Director Frank Borzage creates a great city set amidst fog and shadows. This setting is used to great effect in the several chase scenes. The set design and cinematography earned Oscar nominations, and this is one of three films (with Sunrise and Seventh Heaven) for which Gaynor won the very first Oscar as best lead actress (beating out Gloria Swanson and Louise Dresser).

Gaynor achieved stardom at the end of the silent era but easily made the transition to sound and had a solid career through the late 30s. She is best remembered as the star of the original A Star Is Born in 1937.

By the late 20s, director Frank Borzage was really starting to find his rhythm. He was always prolific and his films were largely successful, but his unique brand of romanticism was starting to take inspiration from German Expression and, in particular, the work of F.W. Murnau. The late 20s saw him direct 7th Heaven, Street Angel and Lucky Star - all huge successes, and all starring the glamorous pair of actors Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell. These movies helped establish Borzage as a champion of the lower classes, where he would find "human souls made great by love and adversity." Street Angel was of his finest and most unjustly forgotten pictures, and while it boasts a Naples setting described as "laughter-loving, careless, sordid," Borzage is keen to highlight how a decent and honest person can be left humiliated and shunned by society for a moment of sheer desperation born out of poverty.

The film introduces our heroine Angela (Ganyor) as she is receiving some devastating news from the local doctor: her desperately sick mother will die without urgent medical treatment, only Angela is so poor that she can't afford the medicine required to make her mother better. With seemingly no other option, Angela takes to the streets to solicit men, and when that doesn't work, she looks to thievery. She is caught red-handed, and is charged not only for attempted theft, but also for prostitution, becoming the 'street angel' of the title. The court sentences her to a year of hard labour, but knowing her mother is alone and dying, Angel manages to escape custody. On her return home, she finds her mother already dead, draping her lifeless arms around her in a desperate plea for affection. With the police now hunting her, Angela joins up with a travelling circus, who welcome the beautiful lady with open arms, despite her recent run-ins with the law.

Time with the circus folk toughens Angela up. She vows to go on fighting, and turns her back on the idea of love. If you've ever seen a romantic movie then you'll know where the story is going, and soon enough a young artist named Gino (Farrell) has his head turned by the charming tightrope walker. They fall in love, but an accident means the couple must return to Naples, a city which threatens to expose Angela's past and send her back to jail. The story is predictable enough, but Borzage finds real poetry in this tale of two lovers brought together by fate. Murnau's Sunrise had been released just a year before, and Borzage had clearly taken notice. From a purely visual standpoint, Street Angel is one of the most innovative movies of its time. The camera feels constantly in motion as it navigates Angel's treacherous path with a looming sense of unease, and settles down to savour the small beautiful moments of Angela and Gino's romance. It all leads to a breathtaking final scene that takes place in a world of deceptive shadows and fog, a moment which may bring our lead characters together again for the final time. It's the work of cinematographers Paul Ivano and Ernest Palmer, and it's one of the most splendid sights in silent cinema.

Melodramatic, atmospheric romance with some great tracking shots that look like they influenced Scorsese decades later. Gaynor and Farrell, are extraordinarily well used; this film probably epitomises their appeal better than any other. He's all youthful exuberance, and she's all liquid-eyed yearning. The print I saw had a musical soundtrack with sound effects -- very soupy, but for a take-it-or-leave-it love story like this, just right.