Sex, Betrayal, Murder, Noir!

 

Fallen Angel (1945) – A down on his luck con man arrives in a small town on the California coast. Splitting his time between a huckster who claims he can speak with the dead and two local beauties pushes him into tighter corners than he expected. One of them ends up dead, and he looks like the fall guy.

Directed by Otto Preminger Starring Alice Faye, Dana Andrews, Linda Darnell, John Carradine

Why I Liked It – Another noir classic in the hands of a great director.

Yes, yes, I know. The noir films have been thick on the ground recently. That’s through no plan of mine (seriously, you think there’s a plan at work here? It’s like you don’t even know me.) Just had a string of them show in the queue or on a streaming channel.

Here’s the good news-this is one of the best.

Otto Preminger gets a cast of major league talent, a story from a best-selling pulp novel, and makes the magic with them. Alice Faye as June brought an established pedigree as one of the most popular singing actresses in the movies. Linda Darnell was a relative newcomer with smoldering good looks. Dana Andrews had been in a hit the previous year (“Laura”) also directed by Preminger. His career extended into the 1980s. It never hurts to have John Carradine holding down a smaller role as Professor Madley the spiritualist hoaxster. Preminger takes it all and keeps the story moving.

Eric Stanton (Andrews) is down to his last dollar when he arrives in Walton, California. The lovely, if headstrong, Stella (Darnell) catches his eye. Just like every other man in the vicinity. She’s not impressed with his smooth talk. Unless he comes up with some financial security for her, it’s a no go.

In short order, Stanton meets the psychic fraud (Carradine), and the beautiful and idealistic local heiress, Clara (Faye). He plans to marry Clara for her money, divorce her, take the money and run off with Stella. When Stella is murdered, all eyes fall on him.

The movie brings plenty to like from everyone involved. It has a couple odd points in its backstory. This was Alice Faye’s next-to-last movie. The final cut of the movie took out all her best scenes and put her second chair to Darnell’s character. At the peak of her career, Faye left 20th Century Fox and her contract behind. She appeared once more on the big screen, almost twenty years later. She deserved better and had the courage to walk away. Meanwhile, the movie is based on a book written by Marty Holland. She would write two books that were made into movies, then fade into obscurity. Lots of folks assumed Holland was a man based on the first name. We know very little about the author after 1949. She died of cancer in 1971.

“Fallen Angel” ticks all the required noir boxes, but it refuses to fall into the usual story ruts. There’s an oddly “up” ending, and the kind of cheerful “good girl” love interest that you only find in movies from the first half of the century.

Rating – *** Worth A Look