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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!

No need to repeat the plot. The screen really pulsates when Darnell appears. That opening shot of her in a big hat and cheap dress, hiking up her skirt tells us all we need to know. Too bad the rest is a disappointment. According to IMDb, a number of production folks were unhappy with the final cut by head honcho Zanuck. Maybe that's why the story lacks focus, meandering from one character to another to no particular purpose. Nor do I see anything like Preminger's usual languid, moody style in the results. Instead, the scenes merely accumulate without building. For example, Carradine's phony spiritualist looks promising, but is quickly dropped. And why is King Kong's Cabot stuck in a brief part that any number of no-names could have handled, unless a number of his scenes were cut.

It doesn't help that Andrews plays one of the most dislikable central characters (Eric Stanton) in noir. In my book, there's nothing redeeming about his fast-talking operator at any level, which makes the sugary June's (Faye) abject devotion all the more unbelievable. Noir protagonists are generally a moral mix that makes them more interesting than the usual one-dimensional hero of the period. Just as importantly, they manage a redeeming quality at some level. Stanton, however, is a heel through and through. As a result, the movie fails to provide a crucial center of gravity to identify with. But, whatever the reason and despite some good scenes usually involving Darnell, the movie remains a meandering disappointment.

Sure, 'Fallen Angel's' plot is full of holes and improbabilities - but what noir isn't full of them?! Indeed much of the appeal and frisson of the genre stems from its tales' and characters' nightmarish, inexplicable irrationality.

The almost always underrated Dana Andrews is superb here in a brilliantly understated performance: by posture, tilt of head, and deft deployment of his eyes he communicates more than most actors manage to tell with their whole scenery-chewing bodies; and Alice Faye kept me guessing: was her June the "still water runs deep" character whodunit? Most of all there's 'Fallen Angel's peerless camera-work and direction that raise it a notch or two above the rather overrated 'Laura' - whose plot sometimes drags and which is chiefly rescued by the literate, finicky presence of Clifton Webb; and Gene Tierney's mannered, diffident, and albeit mysterious Laura isn't half the hard-boiled noir femme fatale that Linda Darnell's Stella is in 'Fallen Angel.' There's another lovely, understated effort here from Bruce Cabot and still another from Percy Kilbride; but in the supporting cast Anne Revere stands out for moving the plot along, for creating tangible suspense, and for two solid moments of palpable nape-prickling foreboding.

'Fallen Angel' is just one of the most underrated noirs. Period.

Just one question I'd like to put: when Dana Andrews enters the hotel auditorium during the spook show, is the blonde woman, seated on the aisle one row behind the brunette (Adele Jergens, uncredited) woman Andrews asks to shift over, his future 'The Best Years Of Our Lives' co-star Virginia Mayo? She sure looks like Mayo.

By the way, the recent 'Fallen Angel' DVD release commentary track by noir maven Eddie Muller is gracefully enhanced by his pairing with with Dana Andrews' daughter Susan Andrews.

With these characters Dana Andrews seldom goes wrong; and here in 'Fallen Angel' his performance is very creditable: never an actor with a wide range of performance what he did do well he did very well.

Here his character suits him: a rascal and a chancer, a low beat and a drop out, but smart, aware, angry, resourceful and determined; teamed with a fellow cast of equally, if different, anglers and no-good characters.

Nice flashes of physical brutality with a charged hint of that exact kind of male "driving" that can cause trouble for unwary women and competing men at each of the rare occurrences of outright violence.

The direction, scene setups and cinematography often raise this film even higher in quality. Lovely flowing camera positions follow, react to and even anticipate onscreen moves. Long takes are used effectively whenever 'Fallen Angel' gets really dark and close between it's trapped characters.

Sex and lust bubble between Dana and both his fiances nicely and there's never a doubt in my mind that every character has either got a sex life, had a sex life, or at least has a sex drive! They don't just want to fall in love. Or pretend to. There's direct human sexual motivation at play.

The murder victim and the police investigation and the eventual culprit are all nicely handled although a few times 'Fallen Angel' does require either extra patience or suspension of disbelief from the viewer due either to clunky plot devices or a slightly un-captivating narrative force deriving from the writer and director. A little more narrative vibrancy, more cinematic treatment, more film noir sensibility would have helped me to let the film lead me where it would.

My final score is a 7/10 but I've really rounded up a high 6 a little, mainly because the fluid handling of the camera, scene set ups and flashes of expressive cinematography do completment a cast suited to their roles and produce a film that as a whole is memorable and interesting if not quite successful as a dramatic story. Pragmatically this would rate a 6 for me but I choose to turn half a blind eye to its more conventional failings and emphasis it's stylistic and tonal value.

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.