ANGEL FACE C+
USA (91 mi) 1952 d: Otto Preminger
Otto Preminger is a heralded director, known as much for his bald, Austro-Hungarian profile, where he specialized in playing brutal Nazi SS officers in various WWII movies, like Billy Wilder's STALAG 17 (1953), as for his dictatorial reputation of being rude and bullying on the set, where he was also renowned for his efficiency and work ethic. He is one of the last of the studio directors, where in this feature he was on loan from 20th Century Fox to do one picture for Howard Hughes and RKO Pictures. British actress Jean Simmons was unhappy with the direction of her career, which never took off in America, and was looking for a way to get out of her contract with Hughes, still fuming from his earlier romantic gestures in persuading her to sign a long term contract even while she was married to Stewart Granger. Taking desperate measures to the extreme, in one argument she grabbed a pair of scissors and cut her hair short, knowing his predilection for women onscreen with long, flowing hair. With only 18 days left in her RKO contract, Hughes convinced Preminger, who initially hated the script, that he could get one more picture out of her and forced Simmons to wear a wig while giving Preminger complete control of the script, allegedly telling him: “I'm going to get even with that little bitch and you're going to help me.” The picture turned out to be ANGEL FACE, which was never a critical or box office success, seen as a kind of noir B-movie, but ironically contains one of Jean Simmons’s better performances, perhaps channeling her inner anger and fragile instability. Paired with Robert Mitchum, the two make unlikely lovers, especially considering he’s a blue collar ambulance driver with a penchant for bowling and race cars while she’s a rich, pampered, and spoiled heiress, not exactly traveling in the same social circles.
They meet when an ambulance is called to the scene of a palatial estate in Beverly Hills where Mrs. Tremayne (Barbara O’Neil) nearly dies under mysterious circumstances from gas asphyxiation, eventually determined to be an accident, where Frank (Mitchum) is intrigued by the lovely step-daughter Diane (Simmons) sitting alone playing the piano, usually a cue in noir films for interior psychological distress. When she follows him secretly afterwards in her convertible race car, the wheels are set in motion where she can accidentally re-introduce herself and make the most of coincidence. The odd woman out is Frank’s girlfriend Mary (Mona Freeman), who is stood up so Frank could paint the town with Diane. What’s worse, he’s caught lying about it the next day when in one of the more unusual scenes of the film, Diane is seen brazenly having lunch with Mary, basically spreading the dirt about her boyfriend, but then masking her real intentions by offering her a sizeable sum of money to help realize Frank’s dream to own a garage that specializes in fixing racing cars. Mitchum is excellent as the casual swine who’s caught lying but pretends it’s nothing, where the audience knows he’s a repeat offender and it won’t be the last time. When Diane suggests Frank come live in the mansion and become the family chauffeur, taking care of their fleet of cars, most would think twice, but Mitchum drops everything like a chump and jumps at the chance, which is simply not in character with the Robert Mitchum the audience is familiar with, a guy who flies solo whenever he gets the chance. When Diane reveals the utter contempt she feels for her step-mother, Frank has sense enough to tell her: “You hate that woman and someday you're gonna hate her enough to kill her.”
This is known as foreshadowing. And therein lies one of the major problems in this film, as the over-explanative dialogue continually reveals too much, always making sure the audience knows exactly what’s going to happen before it happens, which actually takes some of the pleasure away from this film. Some directors simply try to do too much, as if the audience is incapable of figuring anything out themselves. Unfortunately in this film, where the less you know ahead of time the better, none of the so-called surprises come as a surprise, as all the evil deeds are telegraphed ahead of time. Frank sees through Diane instantly, but she continues to use her feminine charms to lure him off his game, where eventually the two get mixed up in a bit of foul play, where the story turns on a dime into a lengthy courtroom sequence that slows the film down and adds little to the drama. See ANATOMY OF A MURDER (1959) for Preminger’s take on an excellent courtroom drama. But if truth be told, this film works best when she is charming the pants off of him and he continually resists, but then becomes intoxicated with her hare-brained schemes, as if the thought of their dreams together can somehow weaken ordinary human beings into committing unethical acts. When Diane is continually pulling Frank into the dark mysteries of her delusional soul, everyone in the audience has enough sense to know better, everyone except Frank. So while they are an improbable couple, they have a way of flirting with disaster, tempting fate, continually going against better judgment, but unlike Hitchcock, for instance, there’s not a hint of suspense, in fact most of this is told in a very matter of fact manner. This couple could be deliciously malicious, but instead they’re portrayed as bland and empty, both devious opportunists who are in over their heads, each trying to use the other, a sleight of hand on the Beauty and the Beast story, where no one is willing to see the beast in such a beauty, as everyone continually looks away from the truth that’s staring them straight in the face.
