Angeli del peccato

I first became friends with Rita when I was 22 and the same age as she is in this only film of hers I had never seen till last night. On that night she and Hermes Pan (master choreographer)were slumming to show her what a coffee house was like, and my roommate who knew Hermes invited them to the hippie like house in an alley way in West Hollywood we shared.We both were in love with the Goddess and did black magic (amateur)to see that Hermes would bring her and it worked.Rita was 38 an still beautiful,a gypsy who drank our cheap wine,and we talked and laughed till dawn. From that day forward,we spent three or four nights a week at her home on Hartford and she often burnt dinner for us and we drank Dom Perignon and we danced and laughed and she told stories and her Brooklyn accent would come out (I hear it a lot in ANGELS) Rita always insisted she could act and this film showed her talent and some of her incredible allure which was emerging.I think she did BLOOD AND SAND the next year where she was outrageously sensual and cruel.She was great in that.Paulene Kael disliked her because she was dubbed by Anita Ellis in most films even though Rita had a decent voice. I found this Hecht film to be far ahead of its time with terrific casting and dialogue which sounded like Mankiewicz in a way,and a touch of Damon Runyon with sophistication.It is an odd, and terrific film and my Rita was really good and I watched her and she "listened" to other actors like a seasoned performer.She still is magical and her presence on film still excites.

1940's "Angels Over Broadway" is actually a little play on words, since the name of one of the main characters is Engle, which in German means Angel (actually spelled Engel).

Written by Ben Hecht, the film stars Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Rita Hayworth, Thomas Mitchell and John Qualen. It's an interesting and sweet film with very good performances, but you would swear it's based on a play because it is extremely heavy on dialogue.

The story concerns four people who wind up joining forces: a wheeler dealer named Bill O'Brien (Fairbanks Jr.), a suicidal man, Engle (Qualen), a lonely performer, Nina (Hayworth) and a drunken playwright, Eugene Gibbons (Mitchell).

Engle needs to come up with $3,000 by morning that he embezzled; O'Brien thinks Engle is a rich sucker; Nina is looking to meet someone successful; and Gibbons has written another flop. They all are in the same nightclub.

While intoxicated, Gibbons learns Engle's sad story and is determined to help him. His first move - taking back a piece of $12,000 jewelry from his girlfriend -- does not work as, after he takes it, she tells him it's paste.

O'Brien had planned to bring Gibbons to a poker game so he could lose a lot of money to thugs and O'Brien could earn a bonus. However, it is decided that Engle should go instead and skip out after winning the initial money that the players will allow him to win to draw him into a false sense of luck.

Nina goes along, interested in O'Brien, even after she finds out he's broke.

One of the most amusing aspects of the film is that everyone - including the mobsters - knows who the Gibbons character is. They all say,"Oh, yeah, you're the playwright."

Anyone who has ever watched "Jeopardy" knows that today, no one knows current playwrights by name or face, let alone current plays.

The film is interesting as well because is that although this is really four individual stories, the plots converge so that the film is not in the least episodic.

Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. Is marvelous as usual. The man could be the most elegant of British gentlemen or a born and bred New York low-life. Here he is the latter and a delight.

I am so glad a previous comment mentioned Marilyn Monroe - she must have been influenced by Hayworth in this film, as Hayworth's voice and delivery in spots can only be described as pre-Marilyn. Monroe couldn't have had a better role model. Hayworth is just beautiful and gives a sympathetic portrayal of Nina.

Mitchell's performance is heartrending, especially when he calls his wife on the telephone. Qualen has precious little dialogue but he, too, does a great job as a desperate man.

Definitely recommended for the acting and the structure of the film, which is masterful.

It is so easy to write off beauty as the reason an actress achieves great rank in Hollywood, and it is what also plagued Marilyn Monroe - the desperate need to be taken seriously for your talent rather than your looks once you have become famous for beauty alone.

I myself had never given Rita Hayworth props for anything other than her luminous visual persona. So it was with great delight that I came across this exceptional film, with its screwball comedy timing and humor, and its amazing ensemble casting - from a sleazy but compelling performance by Douglas Fairbanks Jr. To the ironic portrayal of the has-been drunk played to iconic perfection by Thomas Mitchell.

But the two real gems are John Qualen as a suicidal bookkeeper who is the target of a 2 bit mob scam, and Rita Hayworth - in a portrayal as exceptional to me as Rosalind Russell in The Front Page, or Marilyn Monroe in 7 Year Itch - plays a star-struck wanna-be who is barely making it in shady circumstances, yet manages to convey tremendous innocence and idealism in spite of her deeply compromised situation.

The most striking thing to me of all is how uncanny it is to watch what one would consider to be a classic Monroe performance coming from an actress seven years prior to Marilyn having been given her first on screen part. Suddenly I felt like I understood how Marilyn had crafted her persona - hours of sitting in darkened theaters watching Rita Hayworth concoct her brilliant magic of innocence and seduction like it was real and not a carefully crafted act.

In my humble opinion, I don't believe Marilyn would have been nearly as iconic had she not had Rita Hayworth's example to follow, and this portrayal in Angels Over Broadway is the link that, to me, irrefutably proves my point! What an amazing, under-appreciated work of group talent and screen writing art! Rita is poignantly brilliant and her performance ranks for me with Robert Williams in Platinum Blonde for great, naturalistic acting that lasts through time.

Produced, directed and written by Ben Hecht, Angels Over Broadway is a film that I personally hadn't heard of until it showed up on one of the British Freeview stations this last week. The first thing what surprised was the bona fide classy cast list, Mr Charm himself, Douglas Fairbanks Jr, Miss Beautiful 1940, Rita Hayworth, Mr Ever Watchable, Thomas Mitchell & Mr Undermentioned, John Qualen. The next thing that surprised me was during a bit of research I learned that critics of the day gave the picture a hard time for not soft soaping the audience, madness really, because this is a razor sharp and highly efficient picture.

Set around one night on Broadway, our four main characters come together courtesy of Charles Engle's {Qualen} intention to kill himself over a huge debt. Mistakenly thinking that Engle has loads of cash to burn, Bill O'Brien {Fairbanks} enlists Nina Barona {Hayworth} in the hope of luring Engle to a poker game run by seedy gangster types, and thus fleecing him of his cash, where of course the pair of them will get a cut. Yet boozy playwright Gene Gibbons {Mitchell}, upon learning of Engle's suicidal leanings, hatches a plan to turn the tables on the poker fiddlers and turn Engle's life around. Naturally tho, not everything is going to go to plan!

A smashing film that shines brightly with quality acting and comically astute writing, so if you get the chance then give it a go and you might be as surprised as I was. 8/10

We were intrigued by this movie last night when it showed on TCM. I've always been a Ben Hecht fan so it was good to see something I'd never seen before - in the old days, Bill Kennedy out of Windsor/Detroit showed many old films on his TV show at 1 pm but I don't remember ever seeing this one. Rita Hayworth was just glorious! As usual. I wonder if Marilyn Monroe saw this movie and used Rita's slight speech impediment. Douglas Fairbanks Jr. is always wonderful. I'm a fan of such actors as John Qualen and Thomas Mitchell. They are good in everything. I also liked finding two new actors to look for in old films, Jack Roper, the boxer who played Eddie, and Eddie Foster who played Louie Artino. The black & white was almost delicious, the rain put the movie into a certain mood and the sets were perfection. Wardrobe was easy, no one changed, except for taking off their rain coats. I liked it and I want to see it again soon, which shouldn't be a problem with TCM, they have started showing the same movies over & over anyway. I recommend Angels Over Broadway!