Tarnished Angel

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.

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.

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.

Sally Eilers proves genuinely convincing as a woman who poses as a Protestant faith healer in order to dupe a gullible public. To this end, she fills theaters with a ticket buying public by affecting Kathryn Kuhlman style robes and hieratic mannerisms, which reach their emotional pitch when her "stooge" rises up and walks.

Her plans go awry, however, when her better nature becomes emotionally involved in the life of a rich benefactress, and it is she herself, who is exposed. The film's most gripping moment comes when Miss Eilers desperately tries to actually make a crippled child walk.

Ann Miller, playing a nightclub chanteuse, (at age 15!), opens the film with a beautifully delivered swing song, "It's the Doctor's Orders" that demonstrates even at this young age, that she possessed oodles of showmanship and a fine singing voice. Her fans will not be disappointed in the one dance she is allotted either.

One didn't have to pay the admission price to this film in 1938 to know all about the plot, and if all of the posters were read before entering,there wasn't much chance of getting surprised i.e,; Sensational Expose of "Miracle Racket." Thrilling drama of show girl who turned "revivalist" for money gives inside stuff on phoneys. Fake evangelism exposed in a sensational story of Crime and Faith. She Lived A Scarlet Lie! Broadway show girl becomes revivalist..in a drama of night clubs and camp meetings that packs a mighty heart wallop. (and for those who couldn't guess the ending); She laughed at "suckers" who fell for her "line"...and fell herself for the oldest "line" of all. Monogram and PRC had better ideas regarding taglines on their posters; write something enticing that had nothing at all to do with the film being shown.