Movies - Fallen Angel

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	Movies - Fallen Angel

Fallen Angel is a 1945 black-and-white film noir-style movie directed by Otto Preminger. Cinematography by Joseph LaShelle (who also worked with Preminger on the film Laura
a year before).

Plot

The film begins with a car speeding down the road with the credits zipping by as super-imposed street signs. The camera pulls back and it’s revealed that it’s a bus. Dana Andrews gets pulled off the bus because he doesn’t have enough cash to get to San Francisco. (he’s about 150 miles short). He walks over to Pop’s Eats (now a noir icon with great “BEER” signs out front) and he runs into a group of men looking for the waitress Stella. Apparently every man in town has a crush on her. So begins a twisted tale of Eric Stanton – a former New York press agent down on his luck that becomes a drifter and con man. After Stella returns (the sexy Linda Darnell) to the diner (to the relief of Pops and others) Stanton cons his way into an empty hotel room to sleep. Its professor Madley (the great John Carradine) and his assistant’s room and Stanton talks his way into helping them get their show publicized. Madley is a traveling soothsayer grifter. When Stanton hooks up with Madley and his spook act he meets Clara and June Mills (Anne Revere and Alice Faye) two suckers Madley wants to take.

Madley puts on a very entertaining séance by bringing up the finances of the late Abraham Mills – the father of Clara and June. The two leave the séance upset.

Meanwhile, Stanton falls in love with Stella. She’s as bad as Stanton. She likes to take money from the diner’s cash register. After a quick romance Stanton decides he wants her. She refuses to marry him because of his poor financial condition. Desperate for money, Eric marries the wealthy local spinster June Mills, who he plans to divorce. Clara sees through the scam but is unable to stop the romance. Stanton can’t stay away from Stella even on his wedding night. Instead of sleeping with his wife, he visits Stella.

Just as he's about to dump his new wife, Stella turns up dead.

Mark Judd (Charles Bickford), a hard-bitten ex-cop turned detective, is investigates the murder that first leads to one of Stella’s ex-boyfriends and after a police-style beating of the suspect finally leads to Stanton.

Stanton flees to a seedy hotel room in San Francisco, with June at his side. He quickly abandons her after taking her money, but he returns when word reaches him that June has been charged with Stella's murder.

Critical reaction

When first released, the film received mixed reviews. Today, the film is given mostly positive reviews. A Reel.com review of the film notes that if the viewers can forget the "headlong dive into preposterousness, it's still a lot of fun" The review goes on to say, "... the movie does have much to recommend, from Joseph La Shelle's atmospheric, black-and-white cinematography to Preminger's taut direction to the juicy, hard-boiled dialogue. Veteran character actors Charles Bickford, John Carradine and Percy Kilbride (of Ma and Pa Kettle
) fame lend strong support to the sizzling twosome of Andrews and Darnell, who would make only one more film together, when they were both past their prime: 1957's Zero Hour!
, a forgotten grade-Z thriller."

Featured cast

Trivia

The source of the film was the Marty Holland novel of the same name. She also penned another film noir story that was adaped for the screen: The File on Thelma Jordon
(1949). According to the British Film Institute, "Hardly anything is known about Marty Holland except that, he, was a she called Mary, who wrote two or three best selling pulp novels and then in 1949--to all intents and purposes--vanished, there being no further record of her at all."
The filming location was Orange, California.
The actress Alice Faye was very unhappy with how Otto Preminger edited her performance. She was convinced that her best work ended up on the cutting room floor. She was so angry, in fact, that she quit the film business and did not make another appearance until State Fair
(1962).

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