Fifty Years of Film in 50 Weeks, #25: Fallen Angel, 1945

This post marks the halfway point in my journey through film history by watching approximately one film per week from successive years. Woo hoo!

Fallen Angel, 1945

Director: Otto Preminger
Writers: Harry Kleiner from a novel by Marty (Mary) Holland
Cinematographer: Joseph LaShelle
Producer: Otto Preminger for 20th Century Fox, Inc.
Starring: Dana Andrews, Alice Faye, Linda Darnell, Charles Bickford, Anne Revere, Bruce Cabot, John Carradine

Why I chose it
Although I loved British Powell & Pressburger's A Canterbury Tale, last week's film, I felt like returning to the Hollywood Studio System for a film that would represent the best things about the system during Hollywood's Golden Age. I was also in the mood for a film noir, a genre/style that was gaining major traction at this time in Hollywood. This film was recommended to me by two film friends whose opinion I trust.

'No-spoiler' plot overview 
Running out of bus fare, drifter and con-man Eric Stanton (Dana Andrews) disembarks from his Greyhound in a sleepy California coastal town, shy of his San Francisco destination. He take temporary refuge in "Pop's Eats" diner. 'Pop' (Percy Kilbride) is concerned about his favorite waitress, Stella (Linda Darnell), who has been missing for a few days. Stella reappears that evening, and Eric realizes the brunette bombshell has all the men in the town pining for her. Soon, Eric himself pursues Stella, who is also attracted to him, but demands that he earn enough money to support her.  Eric gets involved with a traveling fortune teller and medium (Carradine) and in that process meets sisters Clara and June Mills (Anne Revere and Alice Faye), the wealthy unmarried daughters of the town's former mayor. He sweeps the virginal June off her feet, but only intends to fleece her and skip town with Stella. Unfortunately, the same day he ties the knot with June, a key character is murdered and Eric becomes a prime suspect.

Production Background
Director/Producer Otto Preminger had a major hit for Fox, Laura, in 1944 with Dana Andrews and another brunette bombshell, Gene Tierney. So he was invited back the following year, along with many key crew members, including cinematographer LaSelle and composer Raksin, and leading actor Andrews, to helm Fallen Angel. In this melodrama propelled by a love triangle, the 'bad' love interest was cast with a star on the rise, sultry beauty Linda Darnell, who was romantically linked to Fox boss Darryl Zanuck. The 'good' girl went to a rather unusual choice: Alice Faye was known mostly from her musical films. But although Faye had begged to be cast in this to broaden her range, she apparently so disliked the finished film and her role, reduced to give Darnell more screentime, that she abruptly halted her career and didn't appear in a film again until 1962. 

While the film garnered generally good reviews, especially for the actors, it didn't make as much of an impression as Laura, and didn't earn any Oscar nominations. Preminger went on to work with Linda Darnell again in the romantic melodrama Forever Amber (1947), while Darnell and Andrews were paired as a married couple forced to fly a commercial airline flight in trouble due to incapacitation by the cockpit crew in Zero Hour! in 1957. Sadly, Darnell died in 1965 at age 41 in a house fire.

Some other notable film-related events in 1945 (from Filmsite.org):

• Roberto Rossellini's influential landmark film Open City (1945, It.) formally introduced Italian Neo-Realism, marked by a gritty, authentic and realistic post-war film style. Characteristics included the use of on-location cinematography, grainy low-grade black-and-white film stock and untrained actors in improvised scenes. The socially-aware, documentary-style film captured the despair and confusion of post-World War II Europe.
• Joan Crawford, who had developed a reputation for being mannered and difficult (and had been let go two years earlier by MGM for a slumping decline), pleasantly surprised everyone at Warners when she delivered one of the best performances of her career in Mildred Pierce (1945). In an astonishing comeback part (and debut role for Warners), Crawford won the film's sole Academy Award Oscar.
• The Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA), created by major US film studios in 1922 to police the industry, was renamed as the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). It was responsible for implementing the voluntary film rating system.
• Pathe newsreel footage of the liberated German concentration camps was released - Radio City Music Hall declared it "too gruesome to be shown at a family theater."

My Random Observations

• One of the things I learned from the TCM/Ball State U. course on film noir was that in a noir film, you're likely to see rooms with horizontal window blinds. This is a great piece of set design for the cinematographer, because they can use low lighting and shadow effects to cast what looks like jail bars across their subjects. Blinds show up early and often in Fallen Angel. In particular, in the diner Pop's Eats, where all the film's less savory characters meet. We're clued into the unhealthy relationships that play out at Pop's and will likely lead to serious problems.  Below are just a few of the shots featuring the prominent blinds.
  
  

  

  Stanton walks into "Pop's Eats"

  
  

  

  At "Pop's" counter is Pops (Kilbride, left), Stella, Mark Judd (Bickford)
  and Stanton. Blinds and their shadows dominate the screen.  
  

  
  

  

  Stanton and Stella get to know each other at "Pop's"

  
  

  

  Shadows galore as Prof. Hadley (Carradine, right) enters "Pop's"

  
  
• On the other hand, the abode of the Mills sisters is Victorian -- we almost lose the two demure and secluded sisters in this shot at breakfast:
  

  

  June (Faye) and Clara (Revere) blend into their curtains
  while discussing their private lives while breakfasting.

  
  
• Despite the near-identical production team, and the same leading actor, this film doesn't feel much like Laura. I attribute that first to the dominance of the musical score in the earlier film (courtesy of composer David Raksin), which sets an ethereal mood and gets stuck in your head pretty quickly. Second, Laura plays out in a mostly upper-class milieu, unlike the gritty, grimy feel of much of Fallen Angel. Yet, blinds show up in Laura, too!
  
  

  

  Laura (Gene Tierney) in her office.

• In the reviews I've read, it's common to criticize Alice Faye's character's angelic, compliant, and loyal qualities that defy credulity. That didn't bother me, although I did find her June a bit of an enigma. For a character that started out as a spinster church organist, she took a huge leap to become a savvy, down-to-earth guardian angel who's willing to live with Eric Stanton's duplicitous misogynist. To make this transition she must have had a far more complex interior life than we see on screen. This was a miss for me, although I do appreciate that the film was primarily concerned with Stanton's character arc.
  

  

  June plans to play an organ recital at the church.

  
  

  

  June, the steely organist.

  
  

  

  June lets her hair down for Eric Stanton.

  
  
  
  And...June's costume neckline takes a major drop.
• The best black and white films are just gorgeous to look at -- and this one should rank among those cited for the beauty of the shot composition. Here are just a few more screenshots highlighting the art of black-and-white cinematography in the studio era.

Where to Watch
A very nice print is streaming for free on YouTube at present. You can watch at this link. It's also available for free streaming on Archive.org, and can be purchased on Fox Home Entertainment DVD from the usual vendors.

Further Reading
Go to TCM's articles on the film, which served as one of my sources of production tidbits, for more detail. 

Fifty Years of Film in 50 Weeks, #24: A Canterbury Tale, 1944

"And when I turn the bend in the road, where they too saw the towers of Canterbury, I feel I've only to turn my head, to see them on the road behind me."
Magistrate Thomas Colpeper

Above images from the opening credits

A Canterbury Tale, 1944

Writers, Directors and Producers: Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger
Cinematographer: Erwin Hillier
Starring: Eric Portman, Sheila Sim, Dennis Price, Sgt. John Sweet

Why I chose it
Before I watched The Red Shoes and The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, I was wary of the British filmmaking team Powell and Pressburger, because I had disliked Black Narcissus, the first of their films I saw. But after I saw those films, I fell under the spell of this duo and have enjoyed a couple of their black and white films from 1940s. When this film showed up on a 'best of 1944' list, I happily dispensed with my usual Twitter poll and dove right into this new-to-me film from the duo who called themselves 'The Archers'.

'No-spoiler' plot overview 
In war-torn England, an English army sergeant (Peter played by Dennis Price), a U.S. Army sergeant (Bob played by John Sweet), and a young woman recently assigned to the 'Women's Land Army' (Alison played by Sheila Sim) meet when disembarking a train in small town Kent, one stop from their eventual destination of Canterbury. As they walk away from the station in the dark, Alison is accosted by an unknown uniformed man who pours glue on the back of her head and gets away without being identified. The three make a pact to investigate this latest in a series of assaults by the mysterious 'glueman', while taking on their current assignments and planning to head to Canterbury. They encounter the enigmatic local magistrate Thomas Colpeper (Eric Portman) who is intent on lecturing the locally-deployed soldiers about the history of the region and the famous 'Canterbury' Pilgrims Road. As the three young friends get closer to solving the glueman mystery, they bond over their own personal burdens and secrets, with the hope that their visit to Canterbury will bring answers. 

Our three modern pilgrims share a train compartment:
Alison, (Sheila Sim) bottom; Peter (Dennis Price), upper
left, and Bob (John Sweet), upper right.

Production Background
Fresh off of his success with the wartime satire The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, Michael Powell had grown up in Kent and was attracted to the non-conventional wartime story because of his love of English history and small village life. He and Pressburger filmed on location in the Kent town of Fordwich  but named it Chillingbourne for the story. They made use of many locals in small parts in which they mostly played themselves, along with professional, if largely unknown actors, for the main and other bit parts. While they were allowed to film exteriors in Canterbury in and around the Cathedral, they were unable to film inside and had to recreate the gothic interiors in their studios in Denham.

Sgt. Johnson (Sweet) takes in the majesty of the Canterbury Cathedral.

They cast a complete unknown, John Sweet, for the part of the U.S. Sergeant who struggles to adjust to life in England. And there was a reason for that: Sweet himself was an actual U.S. Army Sergeant stationed in England whom the duo just happened to see in an amateur play put on by his outfit. Not able to employ their first choices of Burgess Meredith or Tyrone Power who were also in active service at the time, Powell & Pressburger made do with Sweet, who, with a little coaching, was a natural screen presence who brought 'aw shucks' integrity to his role as Bob Johnson. 

Once Sweet returned to the U.S. after the war, he attempted to capitalize on his screen credit with Britain's top filmmakers but was turned down for anything more than bit theatrical parts, and a Hollywood career failed to materialize. He returned to his teaching career (first college, then high school) and fell into obscurity as A Canterbury Tale failed to make much impression in the U.S. (even if there were flashback framing scenes added for U.S. audiences to help with the context). Many years later, Sweet was tracked down by Paul Tritton for a contribution to his planned 'making of' book on the film. Sweet was happy to share his diaries and personal photos he kept from the time of production, and was caught up in a wave of rediscovery of the film due to directors Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorcese championing the work of Powell and Pressburger.

In 2000, Sweet returned to Kent for a special screening of the film and reunited with Powell, Sheila Sim (now Lady Richard Attenborough) and many of the locals; Dennis Price and Eric Portman were deceased by then. So over 50 years later, Sweet's talents were recognized and appreciated by new generations, a fact that greatly satisfied him during the last years of his life. He lived to 2011, when he died at age 95. His obituary had one line about the film as follows: "Sweet...served as an Army Clerk in WWII in London where he was cast into a British film which changed his life."

Sgt. John Sweet with some local boys in A Canterbury Tale

An older John Sweet (center) with Sheila Sim at the 2000
celebration of the film in England. (Photo attributed to Paul
Tritton and posted on www.powell-pressburger.org).

Some other notable film-related events in 1944 (from Filmsite.org):

• The first Golden Globe awards ceremony took place at 20th Century Fox Studios, at first marked by the awarding of scrolls (not statuettes) to honorees (not nominees) who were announced earlier.
• A Los Angeles court ruled, in the so-called "Havilland decision," that Warner Bros. had to release actress Olivia de Havilland after her seven-year contract expired. It said that the studio could not add time to her contract to make up for the periods when she was on suspension. This ruling undercut studios' ability to lock actors into long-term contracts.
• A few years after his first lead film role in 1938, western star Roy Rogers' future wife Dale Evans was first cast in a movie opposite him (as Ysobel Martinez) in 1944 - Cowboy and the Señorita (1944). Following the 1946 death of Roy's wife Arline due to complications during childbirth, Roy married Dale on New Years Eve 1947.
• Swimmer Esther Williams starred in her first Technicolor aqua-musical in the MGM production of Bathing Beauty (1944). It featured synchronized swimming and diving numbers.
• To Have and Have Not (1944) paired an unhappily-married Humphrey Bogart and young Lauren Bacall for the first time (this was Lauren Bacall's movie debut at age 19 ). She was sensational when she first appeared with the sultry question: "Anybody got a match?" The couple fell in love while making the film - and were married shortly afterward in 1945.

My Random Observations

• After about 20 minutes, I paused the film to marvel that I had a smile on my face; unlike last week's movie, this one was a true pleasure, a reminder of why the best movies have so much power to entertain. Perhaps I needed something that was anti-Hollywood. Powell & Pressburger defied genre here, with corresponding tonal shifts (noir, comedy, romance, fantasy, and back again) and an unconventional script which--partial spoiler here--avoided a traditional romance of leading man and lady coming together at the end of the film, even though there were plenty of romantic feelings pulsing through our characters.
  

  

  In the English countryside, Alison and Bob bond by sharing
  the losses both have suffered.

  
  
• Speaking of John Sweet as Sgt. Bob Johnson, I knew immediately from his accent that his actor was American and not a Brit attempting a midwestern accent. And I appreciated that his character was utterly believable if a bit idealized. That there were multiple scenes of interactions between Bob and locals in which they struggled to get past the language and cultural differences, in all cases thanks to patience and good humor on all sides, mutual understanding was achieved. Bob himself was a mild-mannered American who worked to understand and be respected by villagers.
  
  

  

  Bob encounters a boy at his hotel window (it's revealed that
  the youngster is standing a top a moving hay pile) in a scene
  that reminded me of the conclusion of A Christmas Carol.

  
  
• I love the spunky, unconventional women who know their own minds in many of Powell and Pressburger films - Alison Smith follows this tradition perfectly (think Joan Webster in I Know Where I'm Going! or June in A Matter of Life and Death). And unlike most Hollywood leading ladies, Alison is not afraid to go around the countryside in pants and a hair scarf, with little to no makeup, and throw hay around a barnyard. When she's asked if she's afraid to go about for fear of another attack by the 'glueman', she says, "On the contrary, I'll go about every night until I catch him!" 

Shelia Sim as determined, unfazed Alison Smith.

• While the pilgrim path of the three young people is what we follow, the mysterious Mr. Colpeper, self-appointed preserver of local history and misogynistic Victorian values, seems to be on a journey toward a conversion of his own. When he complains that soldiers must be arm-twisted into attending his local history lectures, our heroine asks him "Did you ever think to invite the girls?" "No." "Pity," Alison says, with a long stare that I would like to believe convinces that this is one middle-aged man who will no longer underestimate a woman (he had earlier refused to employ Alison on his own farm because of her gender). He later turns up to offer Alison some comfort during a particularly emotional moment, perhaps to help make amends.
  
  

  

  The first time we see Colpeper in his office appropriately adorned
  with medieval touches.

  
  

  

  Colpeper counseling Peter Gibbs.

  
  

  

  Colpeper attempting to comfort Alison in Canterbury.

  
  
• There are enough slightly eerie touches to suggest some supernatural element(s) at work. All of which added to the overall sense of wonder in the everyday experiences the characters live on their individual and collective journeys:
  
  

  

  The first time we see the hotel sign: 'The Hand of Glory'

  
  

  

  In the film's prologue we see an original Canterbury pilgrim...

  
  

  

  ...transform into a soldier as he looks skyward (in a 
  sequence that may have inspired Kubrick's opening of 2001:
  A Space Odyssey)

  
  
• Note to self: don't wait too long before watching another Powell & Pressburger film.

Where to Watch

For those who subscribe, the film is available on the online Criterion Channel; it's available on their DVD of course, too, with many valuable extras including interviews with Sheila Sim and John Sweet. Amazon Prime customers can purchase the film online for $3.99. An inferior print is available for free on YouTube here.

Further Reading (because I really didn't do this film justice)
Writer Xan Brooks offers his reasons for why the film is his favorite in The Guardian (2011)
Peter von Bagh analyzes the film here for The Criterion Collection.

Fifty Years of Film in 50 Weeks, #23: For Whom the Bell Tolls, 1943

For Whom the Bell Tolls, 1943

Director: Sam Wood
Writers: Dudley Nichols, from the novel by Ernest Hemingway
Cinematographer: Ray Rennahan
Produced by: Buddy G. DeSylva and Sam Wood for Paramount Pictures
Starring: Gary Cooper, Ingrid Bergman, Akim Tamiroff, Katina Paxinou, Joseph Calleia, Arturo de Cordova, Vladimir Sokoloff

Why I chose it
Having recently viewed Ken Burns' documentary about Ernest Hemingway, I put this film on my short list when it was also included on Filmsite.org's list of best 1943 films. It won my Twitter poll by just a few votes.

'No-spoiler' plot overview 
American expatriate Robert Jordan (Gary Cooper) is fighting on the side of the Republicans during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s. His commanding general assigns him to a dangerous mission to blow up a bridge strategic to the Fascists. To do this, he joins up with a group of guerilla fighters led by the squabbling couple Pilar (Katina Paxinou) and Pablo (Akim Tamiroff). Among them is a young woman Maria (Ingrid Bergman) recently rescued from being a political captive. Through a series of alliances, betrayals, and re-negotiations, the plan to demolish the bridge inches forward. In the meantime, Robert and Maria fall in love and pledge to join their souls for eternity. 

Production Background 
Production began soon after the book had become a sensation, and Hemingway, who earned $150,000 for the film rights, was actively involved in the planning process. He counted Gary Cooper among his friends, and modeled the character of Robert Gordon on the actor. It was easy then to cast Cooper in the film. Paramount struggled casting the two primary leading female roles, but eventually settled on Hemingway's pick Ingrid Bergman, who had coveted the role of Maria, and Greek stage actress Katina Paxinou as Pilar. 

There were some tricky issues for the Production Code Administration censors. First, on the political side, Paramount was nervous to be too explicit in naming the 'Fascists' as the enemy here, especially since they were the victors in Spain, and kept the two sides' identities a bit fuzzy. (The film was ultimately banned in Spain and only released there after Franco's death). The other big issues were the "sex" scene between Robert and Maria and the revelation that Maria had been gang-raped by her captors. In the film, it wasn't clear to what extent the physical relationship between the lovers progressed, although they did show the two in a partial shot with a sleeping bag, and it also included a bit of dialog about the rape.

The film garnered several Oscar nods for its actors, including Cooper and Bergman, but only Paxinou won as Best Supporting Actress in her first and only nomination.

Some other notable film-related events in 1943 (from Filmsite.org):

• 20th Century Fox began distributing three million pinups of leggy actress Betty Grable, in her famed white swimsuit photo (with her hands on her hips and an over-the-shoulder smile), mostly to GIs serving in armed forces overseas. She was declared their favorite pinup. 
• 50 year-old British actor Leslie Howard, famous for his role as Ashley Wilkes in Gone With the Wind (1939), was killed when onboard a DC-3 plane that was shot down by German Luftwaffe fighters over the Bay of Biscay near Lisbon, Portugal (considered a war zone).
• The precursor of Italian neo-realism was Luchino Visconti's gritty Ossessione (1943, It.), the Italian director's first film. Loosely adapted from James M. Cain's pulp novel The Postman Always Rings Twice, it enraged fascist censors and inspired the term neo-realism. The movement would really take hold from the mid-40s to the mid-50s, with its main exponents being Visconti, Roberto Rossellini and Vittorio De Sica.
• Supported by the Screen Actor's Guild (SAG), Olivia de Havilland filed a far-reaching lawsuit against her studio, Warner Bros, eventually winning in a 1945 ruling called the DeHavilland Law. It declared that a studio could not indefinitely extend a performer's contract. It imposed a 7 year limit on contracts for service unless the employee agreed to an extension beyond that term. The decision ultimately limited the oppressive contract-power of studios over their performers.
• Controversy was engendered when 54-year-old Charlie Chaplin wed 17-year-old Oona O'Neill, the daughter of playwright Eugene O'Neill (who cut ties with her and disowned her following the marriage). 

My Random Observations

• This is the first film in my 50 Years of Film in 50 Weeks series that I actively disliked. It plodded along for its nearly three hours running time; various European actors with different accents were made up with brownface to look gypsy or Spanish (all except Ingrid Bergman that is); and the romance was telegraphed and overwraught from the moment Bergman showed up on screen. I was desperate for the bridge to blow up already and end everyone's misery.

Akim Tamiroff (center), his band, and Gary Cooper (right)

• The rugged mountain scenery (filmed in California) was quite impressive at times -- which stands to reason as the great William Cameron Menzies was the production designer.

• When Ingrid Bergman cried out "Roberto!", I couldn't help but think about her marriage to Roberto Rossellini, then still a few years in the future.

  

  Ingrid Bergman and Gary Cooper in For Whom the Bell Tolls

  
  
• Katina Paxinou was really my favorite actor in the film; she seemed to own the camera and her fellow actors. However, Paxinou's features and dark hair reminded me of Margaret Hamilton as the Wicked Witch of the West (all she needed was green face makeup and pointed hat).
  
  
  
• It's time I revisit the novel, which, as opposed to the film, is a true classic.

Where to Watch

The film can be streamed for a small free on many platforms.

Further Reading
Critic and writer James Agee's review here offers some of the reasons why I didn't like the film, but also praises some performances.