Tarnished Angel

Sally Eilers is a tough girl, on her own since she was 15. Lee Bowman wants to marry her, but she's just gotten a check from his father, so she blows town with companions Edward Norris and Ann Miller before detective Jonathan Hale can arrest them. Looking for a free cup of coffee, they attend a tent revival meeting. Norris and Miss Miller are bored, but Miss Eilers sees a great new racket.

It's a tale of redemption, with Miss Eilers' character modeled on Aimee Semple MacPherson; her clothes are based on the televangelist's costumes. It's a tightly repressed movie, an attempt to recharge Miss EIlers' career with some interesting casting against type. Despite some interesting attitudes about redemption, however, the movie, while always watchable, doesn't quite work. Miss Eilers lacks the presence, and despite some concessions to the leads' specialties -- Miss Miller does a terrific tap number early on -- it never exceeds being a very watchable little programmer. I expect that at 67 minutes, editor Desmond Maruquette was ordered to trim tightly to bring it down to second feature length.

There's a context to "Tarnished Angel" that many folks today might miss. In the 1920s, the biggest traveling evangelist was Aimee Semple McPherson. She was HUGE but ultimately many folks came to doubt her sincerity and allegations of all sorts of naughty behaviors reduced much of her fame and public adoration. As a result, a few years later, Frank Capra and Barbara Stanwyck made "The Miracle Woman" (1931)...an exposee of a lady evangelist who was in reality a fake. It was obviously modeled after McPherson, but for legal reasons they denied it was a veiled biography of her and her work.

In addition to this influence, I think the early Claude Rains film, "The Clairvoyant" (1935) must have influenced the writing of "Tarnished Angel". Rains plays a fake mentalist who, inexplicably, develops the real ability to tell the future...which horrified him when he saw death in some of his patrons! This sort of revelation is important to "Tarnished Angel".

"Tarnished Angel" begins with a police raid on a gambling clip joint. Carol (Sally Eilers) manages to escape and the man behind the raid is intent on catching her one day, as she is a crook. Later, Carol attends an evangelistic meeting just for the free food. After all, she is really down and out. But the meeting gives her the idea to reinvent herself....posing as a fake miracle worker who can heal the sick. Not surprisingly, she pays shills to pretend to be disabled and in the meetings she 'heals' them! But 'Sister Connie' is no dummy and soon is able to gain respectability...and even admits in one of her meetings that she was once a 'bad girl' named Carol! This fake sincerity act works like a charm....and soon all sorts of people believe in her and her cause....except for that cop who knows what sort she really is. Where does all this go next? See the film.

While the film did pull its punches at the end, this is an excellent B-movie. While the budget was relatively low, the actors mostly second-tier and the running time just over an hour (all hallmarks of a B), it is far better than you'd expect. It also is rather timeless, as the story, sadly, isn't so unusual today with some very famous fake faith healers being exposed in recent years.

By the way, the word 'cripple' is used a lot. Of course it's not politically correct to say that...but crooks would use words like that, so it added to the realism.

This was clearly made on a fairly low budget. Its director was certainly competent but not a distinguished one. When one thinks dark and murky, do the words Ann Miller come to mind? When one thinks star of movie about bad girl who tries a sham evangelist routine does Sally Eilers appear anywhere in the top 25 choices for this time period? Yet, Eilers is convincing. Miller is fine. The male performers are forgettable but adequate. And the mood it creates is on-target and chilling.

Had this come out a few years later, it would qualify as a film noir. The characters are hard-boiled. Eilers tries to dupe kindhearted society matron Alma Kruger. The children's hospital founded and operated by Kruger, which touches Eilers, is a precursor to the plot of "The Naked Kiss," which came almost three decades later.

This dark little movie is well worth a look.

Police detective Cramer is obsessed with finding jewel thief Checkers and pursues nightclub performer Carol Vinson (Sally Eilers). He gets tricked and ridiculed in the press. Carol leaves town with her two performing friends. They walk into a revival meeting and she has an idea. She decides to work the revival circuit as Sister Connie. She raises the stakes by being a faith-healer and gets the best of Cramer again.

The idea is ripped from the headlines. While she is morally compromised, she is still intriguing as the central lead. I would have liked a darker journey, but this is post-Code at this point. She needs to Break Bad for a more compelling story. The second half is a bit meandering and the story loses steam. It's too bad. I really like the first half.

Nightclub entertainers Sally Eilers, Paul Guilfoyle, and Ann Miller elude a nightclub raid and become the special project of Detective Jonathan Hale. Failing to find work they end up at a revival meeting of Earl Hodgins where Eilers is convinced there's a better way to work this game. So the former Broadway chorus girl becomes a regular Aimee Semple McPherson, a regular Tarnished Angel.

Of course with the Code now firmly in place there were now certain parameters that dictated how the plot would go. Our three miscreants try to be bad but can't help being good. In fact Jonathan Hale makes a career bust and his good name is restored.

The pre-Code <iracle Woman was a lot better with the same subject matter though Ann Miller has a nice dance number.