A very mediocre movie with an ending that takes the low road in audience manipulation.
This review is for the 2004 Universal DVD.
The synopsis of this film is that a beautiful singer Mavis Marlowe (Constance Dowling) is separated from her alcoholic husband Martin Blair (Dan Duryea) and refuses to even let him visit her in her swanky high-rise apartment. This depresses Martin so much that he goes on a major bender, but on that same night Mavis is discovered murdered in her apartment by man named Kirk Bennett (John Phillips). While in the apartment, Bennett realizes that someone else is in the apartment, possibly the murderer, but somehow this person slips past Bennett. For some reason Bennett decides not to call the police but instead flees the scene of the crime but is seen by Mavis's maid. The police come to Bennett's home and break the news to his wife Catherine Bennett (June Vincent) that Kirk is wanted for murder. Later, Kirk is arrested and convicted of murder and is given the death sentence. Since he insists on his innocence, Catherine does everything she can think of to find out who the real murderer is. Eventually, she meets up with Martin and this sets up the rest of the film where they team up to find out who really murdered Mavis Marlowe.
Being a noir film with actors Peter Lorre, Broderick Crawford and Dan Duryea are really the only appealing features of this movie. It's clearly a "B Movie" with a weak script and nothing extra special about the sets or the music. The biggest problem with this film is the ending where it really takes the low road in audience manipulation. Without spoiling the ending, it wasn't so much who the murderer was that I object to; my main problem with the ending is under the very suspect circumstances and conditions regarding how the murderer committed the crime. This "surprise twist" wasn't at all clever and could be picked apart to shreds.
As for the DVD, the picture quality was excellent overall. There were very few imperfections noticed in the presentation. The graininess and sharpness were also very good for a film shot in 1946. The sound was fine too. The only bonus is a trailer.
Movie: C-
DVD Quality: A-
Dan Duryea Gives a Conflicted & Affecting Performance.
"Black Angel" is a B-movie with some top-notch talent, adapted from Cornell Woolrich's 1943 novel "The Black Angel" and directed by Roy William Neill. Marty Blair (Dan Duryea) is a washed-up pianist and songwriter who squanders his talent on booze and spends his time pining after his estranged wife Mavis (Constance Dowling), a vicious nightclub singer and blackmailer. He's rebuffed by the doorman when he tries to visit his wife's apartment on their anniversary, goes on a bender, and ends up passed out in his room. Kirk Bennett (John Phillips), a man whom Mavis was blackmailing, finds her dead the following day and is convicted of Mavis' murder and sentenced to death. But Kirk's wife Catherine (June Vincent) is determined to prove her husband innocent. Frustrated with the police, Cathy conducts a clumsy investigation of her own that leads her to Marty. Marty tells her about a man he saw entering Mavis' apartment the night she was killed, and together they track down a nightclub owner named Marko (Peter Lorre), who may know something of her death.
Marty and Cathy make an odd but emotionally effective pair of detectives: a slick alcoholic and an anxious but committed housewife. Dan Duryea is an indispensable noir actor with the ability to make common characters repulsive, sympathetic, or, more often, both. Marty is a sort of tragic romantic lead who has cast his own fate without realizing it, and Duryea accentuates the irony by ignoring it. Marty's sincerity in helping Cathy is evident. The corrosive self-pity into which he tends to fall is also genuine. June Vincent's performance starts out predictably but gets interesting. She's good at conveying her feelings toward her changing relationship with Marty without saying a word. Attention to detail in character and technique -like the tracking shot that opens the film- make "Black Angel" a solid character piece that surmounts its modest budget.
The DVD (Universal 2004): There is a theatrical trailer (1 1/2 minutes). Captions are available in English. Subtitles are available in Spanish and French.
"I don't slug and you don't think...deal?"
Within the last ten years or so, I've really come to appreciate films of the `noir' period, so I was pleased to see a couple of the major studios cracking their vaults and releasing some to DVD. The snappy dialogue (including all those wonderful euphemisms), the immaculately dressed characters (who do you know who dresses `to the nines' to go out and buy a newspaper or pack of cigarettes? Unfiltered, of course...), the bleak atmosphere, scheming mugs, cynical tough guys, and beautiful, yet dangerous, dames...it's a world rarely defined in terms of black or white, but various shades of gray, where very little is as it seems...
Black Angel (1946), directed by Roy William Neill (his last film before his death), who did a handful of the Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes throughout the 40's, stars Dan Duryea (Scarlet Street, The Flight of the Phoenix) and June Vincent (Trapped by Boston Blackie). Also appearing is the ever lovable, bugged eyed Peter Lorre (Casablanca) and J. Edgar Hoover look-a-like Broderick Crawford (New York Confidential).
After the murder of a particularly nasty woman with a penchant for extortion (as we find out later), Catherine Bennett's (June Vincent) husband Kirk is fingered for the crime, since he was the last person witnessed going to the woman's apartment (woo woo), but, as we saw, she was already dead when he got there (hey Kirk, nice job of getting your grimy fingerprints all over everything in her posh apartment...did you really have to pick everything up, including the gun? Knucklehead...) Catherine knows he's innocent, of the murder at least, and feels she must learn the truth, as the great, whopping pile of evidence pointing towards Kirk, aka Mr. Touchy, has scheduled an appointment for him in the gas chamber for a crime he didn't commit. She seeks the aid of the murdered woman's estranged husband, Martin Blair (Duryea), who's been on one heck of a bender since getting the old heave ho by his wife, especially now that she's dead, and isn't inclined at first to help, but soon has a change of heart as Catherine's a heck of a looker and certain possibilities begin to cross his mind. The trail leads our two junior detectives to Mr. Marko (Lorre), a nightclub owner and generally shady character (I did think it was really cool him having a barber chair and set up right in his office...imagine a haircut and shave whenever you wanted). Time is against the plucky pair (well, June is kinda plucky, but not so much Martin...I would call him optimistically opportunistic), as Kirk's day of reckoning is quickly approaching (movie justice sure is swift).
All in all, I thought this was a pretty good film, with a few problems, mainly in the plot. I thought June Vincent (she's a real knockout and sings well, too) and Dan Duryea did well (nice coif Duryea...looks like a can of pomade a day man) but the enjoyment came from Peter Lorre's semi-sinister character of Marko. Sadly, his role was relegated to that of a supporting player, so he didn't appear as much as I would have liked. Even when he plays the most despicable of characters, he's just so damn adorable, you can't help but love him...and that distinctive voice. As an actor, he just seemed to fit so well in the time when he was most popular, playing the characters he did. I thought the direction was highly professional (a perfect example is at the beginning, as we're outside and we see a shot of a cab pulling up to a hotel...as the cab stops, we see from the sign on the cab door that informs us the film takes place in some city in California...it may not seem like much, but the beauty is in the subtlety. A less capable director would have found a way to beat us over the head with this minor fact. I thought the dialog pretty good, but not as snappy as I would have liked...I suppose it's probably because I use The Maltese Falcon as a frame of reference for `gangster speak' (unfairly, I admit) when it comes films within the genre. The problems, for me, lie in the plot. Initially, it seemed like there were some gaping holes, but those were cleared up later on...leaving some minor pot holes causing a niggling sense of the parts not all fitting together quite right. Kirk being such a gullible chump, the convoluted part about Catherine and Martin forming an act as to allow them to infiltrate Marko's club (I had a good laugh when a certain revelation was made that torpedoed their well laid plans and essentially sunk their efforts). After awhile, and well before the identity of the killer is revealed, I guessed whodunit, although I was a bit fuzzy on one particular detail, which was haphazardly explained away (in my opinion). Also, given the who the killer was, I was a bit surprised at the ease of which the killer managed to slip by Kirk when they were both in the murdered woman's apartment, at the beginning of the film, but given what a bonehead Kirk was, I guess I can't pick at that point too much. Also, did it seem to anyone else like the only reason to have June Vincent's character sing a couple of numbers was to capitalize on her singing ability, rather than forward the storyline along? She was a very good singer, but that whole plot element seemed awkward and jammed into the story, interrupting the general flow. I suppose I'm probably making too much of these essentially minor elements, as the film is really pretty entertaining, and deeply steeped with the `noir' qualities I was looking for when I bought it.
The print Universal used on this DVD looks pretty good, with a few, very minor aging elements apparent. The picture is full screen (original aspect ratio), and the audio is excellent. Included is an original theatrical trailer.
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