The Tarnished Angels

I was fortunate enough to attend a screening of "The Tarnished Angels," on a wide screen with a fresh print, at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City back in 1980, with no less than Douglas Sirk himself invited by MOMA as a special guest. The film blew everybody away emotionally; Hudson, Stack, and Malone all give performances that are equally tough and vulnerable, but the grandeur of Sirk's mise-en-scene, which really has to be seen in a theater on a wide screen to be fully appreciated, is a textbook example of the art of telling a story in film terms with both force and grace. Don't mind the other reviewer; Faulkner himself, according to Sirk, said it was the best adaptation of his work he had seen in films.

Great for me to see this rarely-scheduled Douglas Sirk melodrama from his rich, late 50's period and it didn't disappoint. Taking as its subject the uncommon lifestyles of the participants in the popular flying-circus entertainments of the 20's and 30's, it's not long before the familiar Sirk themes of conflicting passions, human weakness and sacrifice raise their heads above the parapet.

For some reason shot in black and white, perhaps to better enhance the period setting, I still firmly believe that all Sirk's work should be seen in glorious colour, no one filled these CinemaScope screens better than he in the affluent 50's. Only just lasting 90 minutes, it crams a lot into its time-frame, drawing convincing character-sketches of the lead parties, Rock Hudson's maverick journalist, generous of spirit and loquacious but seeking love in the person of the beautiful, sexy Dorothy Malone parachutist extraordinaire, she frustrated by the lack of attention she and her son get from her obsessive pilot husband Robert Stack, who'd rather fly above the clouds than engage with earth-dwellers. Throw in his grease-monkey Jack Carson who may have had a fling with Malone in the past and hangs around as much for the scraps she throws him as his duty to Stack and a Mr Big aircraft-owner with designs of his own on Malone and you have an eternal quadrangle ripe for tragedy.

Sure enough, it happens along and spectacularly too, straightening out the lives of the survivors, even if not, I suspect for the better. The acting is first rate, Hudson again showing the depth that Sirk always seemed to draw out of him, handling long-speeches and a drunken scene with ease. Stack again displays his facility for acting against type, playing another emotionally stunted individual masquerading behind his good looks and bravura outlook. Malone however is the epicentre of the movie, the action revolves all around her and it's no wonder with her sexiness and sense of vulnerability, a killer combination for the menfolk here.

Sirk's direction is excellent, juxtaposing thrilling action sequences in the air with oddly contrasting backgrounds - it's no coincidence that the drama is played out in New Orleans at Mardi-Gras time, with the use of masks often showing up in foreground and background as a metaphor for the concealed passions on display here. There are several memorable scenes, like when Hudson and Malone's first illicit kiss is disturbed jarringly by a masked party-goer and Stack's adoring son trapped on a fairground airplane-ride just as his father loses control of his real-life plane.

So there you have it, another engrossing examination of fallible individuals, expertly purveyed by the best Hollywood director of drama in the 50's. Not as soap-sudsy as some of Sirk's other movies of the period, perhaps due to the literary source of the story, but engrossing from take-off to landing.

Despite its many potential traps, melodrama has been done very well many times on film etc and even to classic level. Douglas Sirk was one of the kings when it came to directors that specialised in melodrama, with his generally realistic treatment of characters, lavish use of colour (some of his work didn't use that though) and far from held back approach to serious subjects being trademarks of his. Know Rock Hudson better from lighter fare, though he was far from inexperienced when it came to the more dramatic roles.

'The Tarnished Angels' is not one of Sirk's finest and there are better melodramas out there. It is a good representation of the actors though and Sirk generally is well served too, even if other films of his show off his trademark touches better. It is not hard to see why William Faulkner, author of the film's source material 'Pylon', thought very highly of 'The Tarnished Angels' and my opinion of it generally leans towards the positive reappraisal it's garnered overtime and not the panning it got from some at the time.

Sure, 'The Tarnished Angels' is not perfect. To me the final quarter is not as interesting as the rest of the film, resulting in some leaden pacing, and the sentiment gets blown into inflated proportions. The ending didn't ring true and felt far-fetched and unrealistically pat, like it was shoe-horned in from another film.

Hudson's character was very underwritten at times, rather embarrassingly so.

On the other hand, 'The Tarnished Angels' looks great. It is one of Sirk's most visually ambitious films, evident in the gorgeously haunting and wonderfully meticulous cinematography that is remarkably subtle at times. Dorothy Malone's look is admittedly anachronistic, with no attempt to make her look like a woman from the 30s where the film is set, but the production design is very handsome all the same. Frank Skinner's music score has a broodiness and melancholy without being too over-scored or too constant. Sirk directs with sensitivity but also understated passion. Personally thought on the most part that the script was fine, thought-probing, at times darkly humorous, at others uncompromisingly biting and at other times sincerely poignant. One of the better moments being Hudson's big monologue.

While the story has its faults later on and is unashamedly melodramatic, to me the emotional impact it had was intense and moving. A sensitive subject handled in a non-shying away fashion. The flying sequences are beautifully shot and excitingly staged. One could argue that the characters are not likeable and hard to care for, that is true but to me they came over as real people with real human conflicts all the same. The moral reversal of Burke and Roger is especially interesting. The acting is very good, even though Burke is underwritten Hudson gives it everything he's got especially in the aforementioned monologue. Robert Stack is a brooding presence while Jack Carson provides some welcome and not too misplaced levity. Malone is affecting in a way that doesn't get over the top.

Overall, well crafted film but didn't bowl me over. 7/10

Let's get this straight right off the bat: I have read William Faulkner's novel Pylon, and Douglas Sirk's cinematic adaptaion of it, Tarnished Angels, lives in the original's shadow. Pylon, which for some reason is the only Faulkner novel currently out of print, is one of that glorious author's best works. Still, the film is an excellent achievement. The story's power may be a bit lessened, but Sirk's direction as well as the performances of Rock Hudson, Dorothy Malone, Robert Stack, and Jack Carson make up for it. And while the plot suffers from reductions, the dialogue, much of which, I'm pretty sure, was not in the novel, is very good. The best scene in the film is Rock Hudson's drunken and passionate speech in the news room near the end of the film. In the novel, the equivalent of that speech is found in a garbage can. The final image of the novel is of the newspaper editor reading Burke Devlin's impassioned, prosaic description of the final pylon race. It's a perfect ending for a novel, but the screenwriter here was right in putting those words, or at least the idea of those words, back into Devlin's mouth.

Tarnished Angels is equal in artistic accomplishment to the other great Sirk film I've seen, Written on the Wind. Both star Rock Hudson, Robert Stack, and Dorothy Malone, but there is a big difference between the two. Written on the Wind is a florid melodrama, the kind that Sirk was famous for. The colors are almost psychedelic, and the level of melodrama makes it feel like the world is about to end. Tarnished Angles is filmed in black and white, and, while it is melodramatic, it never feels like it's going over the edge. Sirk plays it at a level where you can feel the desperation of the characters (the novel, which isn't as prudish (the film, of course, was made under the Hayes Code), depicts a level of loss and desperation that is simply murder; the ending of the film, which I wouldn't exactly call happy, is a hundred times less depressing than that of the novel). But, unlike in Written on the Wind, it never seems like Sirk is laughing at or making fun of the characters in Tarnished Angels. It seems like he meant this film to be an honest adaptation of a great novel. He succeeded quite well. 9/10.

PS: The Criterion Company recently released Written on the Wind and All That Heaven Allows on DVD. I beg them to release this one next. The version on VHS is cropped from its widescreen glory, and you can tell. It feels very cluttered and claustrophobic, and often the panning and scanning seem choppy. The opening credits keep the widescreen, and it looks like it might be an even more visually spectacular film than I noticed. I really wish that they wouldn't get my hopes up by holding the original aspect ratio through the opening credits. What I want to see one day is the word "CINEMASCOPE" cropped to "EMASC" at the beginning of a film in a 1.33:1 aspect ratio.

Terrific Douglas Sirk melodrama from the William Faulkner novel "Pylon." I have not read the Faulker book, but I'm guessing it was nowhere as soapy as the film, but as soapy melodrama's go, no one does them better than Douglas Sirk. Robert Stack plays a boozy disillusioned WWI flying ace who now spends his days as a barnstorming pilot at rural carnivals with his neglected parachutist wife, Dorothy Malone, who he only married as a result of a literal roll of the dice. Rock Hudson plays a reporter doing a story on this dysfunctional traveling family of flyers that also includes Jack Carson, Troy Donahue, and William Schallert. Sirk's perchance for over- the-top drama is probably not going to look great to modern viewers, but for fans of classic Hollywood and fans of Sirk in particular, this film is a must see!