Angela

My review was written in April 1984 after viewing the movie on Embassy video cassette.

"Angela" is a competently-made but uninvolving melodrama shot in Montreal at the end of 1976. Reviewed here for the record as it finally appears in the home video market, domestically unreleased film had foreign playdates only.

Production history was a troubled one, with directors Benjamin Manaster and Sidney J. Furie replaced and the late Boris Sagal taking over. As with other tax shelter-financed entries during the Canadian production boom, pic is copyrighted by a financial institution, the Montreal Trust Co.

Prolog is set during the Korean War, with Angela Kincaid (Sophia Loren) giving birth to a child while her husband Ben (John Vernon) is off fighting. Upon his return, Ben accuses her of promiscuity, does not believe the kid is his and then ends up in jail on a long stretch after Angela finks on him concerning a gun-running caper for local gangster Hogan (John Huston).

Shifting 20-plus years ahead to 1976 (with Loren and several other cast members not aging at all), Angela is a successful restaurant manager who falls in love with a young man, Jean Labrecque (Steve Railsback), who is actually her son, whom she had given up for dead, kidnapped as an infant by Hogan and given to foster parents.

Melodrama pays off with a vengeful husband Ben released from prison gunning for Angela plus Angela's inevitable realization that she has unwittingly been engaged in incestuous relations.

Atmospherically filmed, picture is unfortunately flat and suffers emotionally from an unsatisfying ending. General format, including a fine, melancholy Henry Mancini musical score, realls the surprise 1976 hit, "The Sailor Who Feel from Grace with the Sea"; a sexually repressed mature (but beautiful) woman letting go in a torrid affair.

Unfortunately, though the handsome Sophia Loren is well-cast, film's erotic content is nil and would qualify for roughly a PG rating if submitted for same.

Performing is rather low-key, with Steve Railsback playing the son's part as so friendly and pleasant that the character comes off as mentally challenged. Guest star John Huston is effective in a tailor-made role of the local gangster, playing checkers all day with his black henchman at a cafe, and carrying obvious mythological overtones as he carelessly determines the destinies of the other characters.

Obviously, the draw for watching this movie was La Loren and Huston in the same movie. I had never even heard of this movie before until it popped up on Prime.

Firstly, the film stock is badly degraded and needs a 4K restoration, but seeing as this is a forgotten film, the chances are slim.

The acting is very much of the day, as is the direction and editing. The best thing about the film is the story which is based on Oedipus and Loren's trademark stoicism holds the piece together.

I didn't understand the attraction to Steve Railsback at all. Yes, he was too young, but I suppose that was the whole point.

This film is quite a good adaption of Oedpipus.

I just happened to see the review by IMDb user "parkerr86302." Parker's review shows how people who don't know basic cultural history and don't have any exposure to the classics can be frustrated by the basic human themes. Note he writes: " This also makes the screenwriter's climactic punishment of them despicable and obscene. Why should they be punished for something they know nothing about?" That is exactly the point. Oedipus' sin is not one of knowledge. It is one of commission without knowledge. For the ancient Greeks these sins were not mitigated by ignorance. Oedipus and Jocasta were not spared due to their ignorance of their familial relationship and ancient audiences would not have seen them as innocent. Terrible things are happening to Thebes due to their sin regardless of the fact that they did not know if it.

One cannot apply modern western Christian ideas of innocence from ignorance of sin to the mores of the Oedipus myth.

Once you understand those parameters you can appreciate this Oedipus adaption. The writing is fairly good.