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.