¿Ángel o diablo?

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.

This neglected film noir gem by the great Otto Preminger is better and more poetic than Preminger's previous classic "Laura". For one thing, Preminger's fluid camera work and long takes here reach perfection, pointing them toward his mature long takes and objectivity in 1950s with such dazzling masterworks as "Where the Sidewalk Ends", "Angel Face", "Anatomy of a Murder". Each scene is shot and elaborated with precision, with minimum amount of edits to elucidate the emotions of the characters.

Also, Dana Andrews, with all his unique ambiguity and minimalism, turns in one of his finest performances ever; just a hint of his outstanding performance (and probably his best) in "Where the Sidewalk Ends". Andrews' co-stars Alice Faye and a sluttish Linda Darnell are great as well. The magnificent chiaroscuro photography by Joseph LaShelle has certain crispness and lucidity that is similar to Anthony Mann's "T-Men".

Some may find the second half of the film quaintly melodramatic and David Raksin's romantic score is admittedly less memorable than "Laura" but "Fallen Angel" deserves to be seen and viewed within its credentials.

The effect is haunting and breathtaking.

Fallen Angel is directed by Otto Preminger, with cinematography by Joseph LaShelle, who also worked with Preminger on the film Laura the year before. The film stars Alice Faye, Dana Andrews, Linda Darnell & Charles Bickford. Seen as something of a lesser entry in film noir and on Preminger's CV (he claimed to not even remembering the film when quizzed about it once!), the piece is famous for being the last film Faye made as a major Hollywood actress. Disappointed at how studio boss Darryl F. Zanuck and Preminger cut her role out of the picture (they were all about Darnell), Faye left the studio the day after a preview screening, and did not make another film for 16 years.

The plot sees Andrews as press agent Eric Stanton, who down on his luck gets turfed off the bus some 150 miles from San Francisco and finds that he is in the small coastal town of Walton. Here he meets sultry waitress Stella (Darnell) and frumpy recluse June (Faye). The former he is very attracted too, so is everybody else it seems, the latter has just come into a lot of inheritance money, something else that catches Eric's eye. Pretty soon his life will be surrounded by love, infatuation, jealousy and worst of all - murder.

More a mystery whodunit than an overtly dark venture into the realm of film noir, Fallen Angel is still a tidy and atmospheric movie. One where we can never be fully sure everything is as it at first seems. Especially the three main protagonists, where Preminger, in spite of not remembering doing so, misdirects the audience about the character's make ups. This greatly aids the whodunit structure where the killer is well disguised until the end reveal. Its also nicely shot by LaShelle, where the lighting is key for scenes involving the more vixen like Darnell and the more homely Faye, the difference, and what it says, is quite striking. It be a nice narrative line to follow on revisits to the film.

The acting is safe, with Darnell leaving the red blooded men amongst us happy and wanting more. And in spite of some uneven threading of the plot in the last quarter, the end is a triumph and a genuine surprise. 7/10

Footnote: The source novel the movie was adapted from was written by Marty Holland. Also the author of "The File on Thelma Jordan" (1949), Marty was actually a she named Mary, of who little or nothing else is known about because after 1949 she upped and vanished never to be heard of again!

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.