Anecdotes

L'ange noir (1946) was the last film of director Roy William Neill. Neill had just produced and directed most of the Sherlock Holmes films starring Basil Rathbone, and any classic movie fan knows that those pictures are gorgeous to look at. Black Angel looks very similar. Tragically, Neill died of a heart attack, at age 59, just months after the release of Black Angel. It was his last film but a fine conclusion to a career that boasted over 100 directing credits dating back to 1917.

Like her character Mavis, Constance Dowling would die at a relatively young age. She passed away at age 49 due to cardiac arrest. The same fate would befall her son Peter Tors, who died in 1998 at age 41.

The line "Will I love wisely or too well?" (in the song performed by Dan Duryea and June Vincent) is an allusion to William Shakespeare's Othello. Othello, having murdered his wife, claims to have loved "not wisely but too well," a reference to his jealousy.

The Los Angeles Bulletin newspaper's main headline is "Bennett Murder Trial Begins." Below that are several subheads that are often seen in newspapers in other movies. "Hundreds Killed in Chinese Quakes" (seen in Le trésor des Aztèques (1946), More Dangerous Than Dynamite (1941), and others), "Meteorite Falls Near Baby" (seen in at least six other films, including The Bamboo Blonde (1946) and Traquée (1947)), "Lightning Bolt Kills Two, Hurts Several Others (The Brute Man (1946)), and "Government Cost Cuts to be Urged" (Boomerang (1947) and L'Atavisme qui tue (1944)).

The same situation occurs in the Los Angeles Sun with the screaming headline "Bennett Pleads Not Guilty," with the subheads "Woman Found Dead, Fire Murder Victim" (House of Horrors (1946) and The Brute Man) and "Mayor Seeks Budget Boost (The Mad Ghoul (1943)).

L'ange noir (1946) is set in Los Angeles and broadly adapted from the novel of the same title by Cornell Woolrich (New York, 1943).