Angel, Angel, Down We Go

I recommend that this is watched on a double-bill with Wild in the Streets, also written by Robert Thom. Both films contain similarities - a Messiah-like pop star with pretensions for a new social order, overbearing parents, LSD sequences, pop music, alternative forms of sexuality, camp and "established" actresses freaking out.

This film is like being in a long trance - there's so much imagery and symbolism that you'll need to watch it three or four times before it starts to make sense.

It's a little nihilistic for my liking, but well worth watching - Jennifer Jones gets to call her maid a sadistic lesbian, her husband appears in the first scene naked in the shower with his young male friend, while the daughter's voice-over says "My first memory is that my parents were perfect." There's all sorts of weird stuff like the cast taking a walk along Santa Monica Beach and Jennifer Jones buying candyfloss with her jewellery and then discarding it.

The songs are reasonably good too, especially The Fat Song, Bloody Mama (also another Robert Thom film) and Angel, Angel Down We Go. This is one freaked out movie. I love it!

A compelling, unjustly neglected piece of psychedelic trash exploitation that has to be seen (and heard!) to be believed! Fans of Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls, Charles Manson and The Monkees Head take note. You haven't lived until you've seen Roddy McDowall as a tripped out freak or hummed along with the Mann/Weil ditty about how groovy it is to be fat. And Bogart Peter Stuyvesant! Boy, they don't have names like that anymore. One part Jim Morrison and one part Lorenzo Saint DuBois. Start the revolution without him, PLEASE.

Loved it!!

The this is a disgraceful movie, embarrassing to watch and the only reason I and am sure many others did was to see a great star Jennifer Jones return to work. Puzzling as Jennifer Jones the great star of 'Song of Bernadette', 'Love Is A Many Splendored Thing', 'Madame Bovary', 'Tender Is The Night', was reduced to appearing in this film. Why Jennifer Why? Anyone who follows Jennifer Jones' career notes that David Selznick micro managed Jennifer's career making some wise choices Song of Bernadatte and then some poor one's turning down 'Laura'. Mr.Selznick regarded Jennifer Jones as a star of the stature of Garbo. To see this fine talented actress in a mess like this is explainable only by the fact perhaps in the editing some un wise choices were made. and I am sure the only reason some have seen it is to see Ms. Jones who was a superb actress appear in a dreadful film. I am not sure but I believe this film was shot at the old Selznick studio in Culver City which makes the embarrassment all the more to the point.

Jennifer Jones would go on to make one more movie 'Towering Inferno' with Steve McQueen, and Paul Newman and William Holden, and where Jennifer Jones got some very good notices and a Golden Globe Nomination, and then retired.

David Barra

American-International Pictures during the 1960s usually had a good idea of what their drive-in audience would like to see, but they really missed the boat with "Angel, Angel, Down We Go" (a.k.a. "Cult of the Damned"), which was a box office disappointment. Studio head Samuel Z. Arkoff theorized that the failure of the movie was because the characters in the movie simply were not sympathetic, and the movie was extremely downbeat. That's certainly true, but the movie has additional problems. It's also pretty slow, with its thin story stretched out to the breaking point. Also, I am not sure what point the movie was trying to make, unless it was that life is a real downer. The movie is sometimes directed in an eye-catching manner (particularly the opening minutes), but it doesn't manage to hide that the story and characters are drab and uninteresting. It took a long time for this movie to get a home video release, though if you ask me, it could have stayed in obscurity.

the review in the "Psychotronic Encyclopedia Of Film" had me looking for this one, for years. Finally found it in 2003, and wouldn't you know, it has ended up on USA cable here a year later. (Showtime Beyond is really exhuming the hard to find AIP stuff regularly) So, what to say. The casting is positively bizarre, with Jennifer Jones, modeling the same outfit she later wore in "Towering Inferno"; Protest singer Holly Near as her troubled fat-girl daughter; Charles Aidman as the rich, secretly gay, father; Jordan Christopher as the freaky rock singer/producer,currently working with his new band "The Rabbit Habit" featuring Lou Rawls (who never sings?), and Roddy McDowell in his freakiest psychedelic film. It starts with Christopher appearing to be a liberating force, but by the end, the drug use/criminal activity leaves no one liberated, and some dead. It's fairly pointless overall, but there are some classic moments to be treasured. Favorite dialogue award goes to Jones, with the classic:"In my heart of hearts, I'm a sexual clam", though Roddy's mini-rant about sexuality, ending with his description of being "turned on" by a carrot comes real close. Hardly classic, but rewarding for the curious! Good companion piece to similar epics from that time, from "LSD, I hate you", on back to "Skidoo", and "Gas-s-s-s, or it may become necessary to destroy the world in order to save it!"