Fallen Angel

TV Movie
1981
Not Rated
1h 40m

IMDb RATING

YOUR RATING

Dana Hill and Richard Masur in Fallen Angel (1981)

Twelve-year-old Jennifer is unhappy with her widowed mom's relationship with a family friend. Feeling lonely, she readily accepts the friendship of an adult man named Howie and joins the sof... Read allTwelve-year-old Jennifer is unhappy with her widowed mom's relationship with a family friend. Feeling lonely, she readily accepts the friendship of an adult man named Howie and joins the softball team he coaches. Howie is soon convincing Jennifer to pose for photographs which bec... Read allTwelve-year-old Jennifer is unhappy with her widowed mom's relationship with a family friend. Feeling lonely, she readily accepts the friendship of an adult man named Howie and joins the softball team he coaches. Howie is soon convincing Jennifer to pose for photographs which become more and more revealing. He turns out to be a pedophile who works in child pornography... Read all

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

6.8/10

710

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

Nominated for 1 Primetime Emmy
- 1 win & 3 nominations total

Photos41

+ 37

User reviews13

6.8710

Featured reviews

10lisakhemani2

Wow! This movie had a HUGE impact on me as a tween when it came out.

To this day, anytime I see Richard Masur, "Howard" in anything, I am still totally creeped out. Granted, I was only 11 When I saw it, but I think his performance was amazing. As an adult looking back now, I imagine it was a difficult role for him to play. And Dana Hill was great too. Her "average kid" persona made the movie so much more realistic. The movie really helped me see and understand what the grooming process looks like, and what to look for as a child. I hope I can find it online somewhere so I can show my daughter.

9robbytara

Tense to watch

I actually watched this movie at school of all places! It was in 1983 and I guess the school board wanted all young people to know about this disturbing topic. This movie is very tense for me to watch, I have a twelve year old daughter myself. This was a well made TV movie that I will give a solid 8/10.

9laurina70

Excellent and disturbing.

I remember watching this growing up. I'm 50 and it still haunts me.

10rottenmat

amazing, disturbing tv movie

I wholly disagree with the idea that the plot stalls and the behavior of "Howie" is inconsistent. The writers make it quite clear that Howard Nichols seduces both for sex and for business. What makes this movie creepy is that it is too good. The pedophile character is complex, and such a complex depiction would be unthinkable today. This is almost a period piece... It documents an era of innocence long gone. Word of warning.... don't use this film for its intended purposes... it's too bizarre for kids.

6moonspinner55

Assured performances in an unsteady "warning" film

Richard Masur is exceedingly creepy as a pedophile who lures youngsters into kiddie-porno films, but this vehicle for his character can't quite create a plot out of these dynamics. Masur's relationship with disenfranchised youth Dana Hill is pseudo-friendly (he's really all business), so it comes as something of a surprise when he tells her near the end that he wants to be her lover. This is not consistent with the character, nor is it likely that Hill would find any revelations shocking at this point. What the movie does well is to show Hill almost absent-mindedly falling into the porn racket, turning her from an innocent latch-key kid into someone hard and manipulative (yet the filmmakers have her go all sweet and soft at the tag, as if finding the culprit repairs most of the damage). "Fallen Angel" isn't a great TV-flick, nor has it proved to be an important one, but it does have some frank dialogue and some emotional and disturbing scenes.

More like this

7.3

5.9

7.2

5.5

6.3

The Best Little Girl in the World

6.4

6.6

7.2

6.4

6.2

6.2

6.1

Trivia
Richard Masur once told an interviewer that he got his part because "the other 20 people they went to before me wouldn't do it." He also praised Dana Hill's acting abilities and intelligence.

Goofs
When Howard leaves the boys' apartment before the ball game, The Diamond Head Game (1975) is playing on the living room TV (a series distributed by Columbia Pictures Television, who also packaged this film). The short-lived game show aired for the first half of 1975, yet the film is clearly set in the present time (late 1980, when filming took place).

Quotes
Jane Rizzo: [last lines of film, in voice-over, giving her closing argument during Howard's trial] And so, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, we ask all adults to look at those below our eye level. To take seriously America's current adult-child relations. There are one million runaways today. Child suicide has tripled in the last ten years; thirty each day. More than half the patients in our mental institutions are under twenty-one. Many children rarely relate to their parents, to the adults in their community, or the adults on television. And into this void walks the pedophile, the child lover. Now, we don't want to suggest that every coach, every teacher, every adult our children come in contact with is a pedophile. It is possible that he or she might be, but it is not possible for our children to be psychologically seduced by these sick people, if we know and love and discipline and talk to and discover what is in the very bright minds of the youngsters in our lives. We do want to suggest to you, the jury, that we can take one step closer in spanning America's adult-child chasm by finding Howard Nichols guilty.