Un escroc habile, qui cherche à gagner de l'argent, arrive dans une petite ville, mais il obtient bientôt plus que ce qu'il attendait.Un escroc habile, qui cherche à gagner de l'argent, arrive dans une petite ville, mais il obtient bientôt plus que ce qu'il attendait.Un escroc habile, qui cherche à gagner de l'argent, arrive dans une petite ville, mais il obtient bientôt plus que ce qu'il attendait.
- Réalisation
- Scénario
- Casting principal
- Récompenses
- 3 victoires au total
- Stella's Neighbor
- (non crédité)
- Coroner at Murder Scene
- (non crédité)
- Reporter
- (non crédité)
- Shoeshine Boy
- (non crédité)
- Bank Clerk
- (non crédité)
- Man in Drug Store
- (non crédité)
- News Vendor
- (non crédité)
- 2nd Bus Driver
- (non crédité)
- Walton Hotel Clerk
- (non crédité)
- Man Leaving Drugstore
- (non crédité)
Avis à la une
When Alice did agree, after fifteen years away from the screen, to appear as Pat Boone's mother in the remake of State Fair. Again, she was disappointed as the director Henry King, whom she had been promised would do the film, was reassigned and the film given to Jose Ferrer, who had never been to a state fair or directed a film. Thereafter Alice appeared only in a few bit parts and left screen roles completely.
But, I think Alice under-appreciated the work she did in Fallen Angel. The critics were not that hard on her, but she really wanted to make a major success in a dramatic role and unfortunately that didn't happen. The film, however, is very much worth seeing and has never been available on video previously. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.
Also, Dana Andrews, with all his unique ambiguity and minimalism, turns in one of his finest performances ever; just a hint of his outstanding performance (and probably his best) in "Where the Sidewalk Ends". Andrews' co-stars Alice Faye and a sluttish Linda Darnell are great as well. The magnificent chiaroscuro photography by Joseph LaShelle has certain crispness and lucidity that is similar to Anthony Mann's "T-Men".
Some may find the second half of the film quaintly melodramatic and David Raksin's romantic score is admittedly less memorable than "Laura" but "Fallen Angel" deserves to be seen and viewed within its credentials.
The effect is haunting and breathtaking.
Sultry Linda Darnell is Stella, a waitress at Pop's. She is hot stuff--every man who meets her instantly falls in love. Andrews catches Stella's attention pretty easily but she's not interested in a man with only one dollar in his pocket. He tells her he knows where he can get $12,500--and starts hanging around...
Prim Alice Faye, who lives with her sister in a large house that their father has left them. Andrews has discovered that Faye and sister share a $25,000 estate just waiting to be cashed in. He befriends and pursues her, planning to marry her, grab her money, and run off with Darnell.
Dana Andrews is kind of a rat in this story. The men he meets at Pop's are equally unsavory: Salesman Bruce Cabot, who seems to be Stella's current boyfriend; former policeman Charles Bickford, crotchety and vaguely menacing; and Pop himself, Percy Kilbride, who is even more obsessed with Stella than everybody else.
Darnell is outstanding as Stella, and it helps that she gets the best close ups and dialog. Alice Faye, on the other hand, has a role that is just not convincing....why does she fall for such an obvious crook as Andrews? We just don't know. (The theory that studio brass insisted on boosting Darnell's role at Faye's expense seems to make sense, though--if Faye's part was cut way down, no wonder she seems like such a dolt.)
Andrews gives a good performance as the scheming, dreaming, irresistible drifter...his sometimes-despicable character is indeed almost sympathetic. Anne Revere has a small but important role as Faye's not-so-gullible sister.
The plot includes not only Andrews's wicked plans but other characters' jealous schemes as well, leading up to an eventual murder. The picture's pace is deliberate but never boring; it seems like no matter which combination of characters is on screen, we are watching them do their best to deceive and dissemble.
Not completely satisfying but definitely worthwhile, especially for the beautiful photography and Darnell's breezy command of all these men's emotions.
Here his character suits him: a rascal and a chancer, a low beat and a drop out, but smart, aware, angry, resourceful and determined; teamed with a fellow cast of equally, if different, anglers and no-good characters.
Nice flashes of physical brutality with a charged hint of that exact kind of male "driving" that can cause trouble for unwary women and competing men at each of the rare occurrences of outright violence.
The direction, scene setups and cinematography often raise this film even higher in quality. Lovely flowing camera positions follow, react to and even anticipate onscreen moves. Long takes are used effectively whenever 'Fallen Angel' gets really dark and close between it's trapped characters.
Sex and lust bubble between Dana and both his fiances nicely and there's never a doubt in my mind that every character has either got a sex life, had a sex life, or at least has a sex drive! They don't just want to fall in love. Or pretend to. There's direct human sexual motivation at play.
The murder victim and the police investigation and the eventual culprit are all nicely handled although a few times 'Fallen Angel' does require either extra patience or suspension of disbelief from the viewer due either to clunky plot devices or a slightly un-captivating narrative force deriving from the writer and director. A little more narrative vibrancy, more cinematic treatment, more film noir sensibility would have helped me to let the film lead me where it would.
My final score is a 7/10 but I've really rounded up a high 6 a little, mainly because the fluid handling of the camera, scene set ups and flashes of expressive cinematography do completment a cast suited to their roles and produce a film that as a whole is memorable and interesting if not quite successful as a dramatic story. Pragmatically this would rate a 6 for me but I choose to turn half a blind eye to its more conventional failings and emphasis it's stylistic and tonal value.
Le saviez-vous
- AnecdotesAccording to Wade Williams in Alice Faye: The Star Next Door (1996), when Alice Faye saw a rough cut of the film and realized that Otto Preminger's editing had diminished the impact of her performance in favor of newcomer Linda Darnell, she got up from the screening, drove off the 20th Century Fox lot, threw her dressing room key to the security guard and vowed never to work for the studio again.
- GaffesAmong the works listed on the church reader board for June Mills's upcoming organ recital are a "Stabat Mater" by Beethoven and a "Requiem" by Brahms. Beethoven never wrote a 'Stabat Mater', and the only 'Requiem' by Brahms is a massive choral work, highly unlikely to be played as an organ solo.
- Citations
June Mills: I need you, Eric.
Eric Stanton: [sarcastically] You need me, right.
June Mills: You're my husband, and I'm your wife.
Eric Stanton: Right out of a book, again.
June Mills: Yes, out of a book: "We were born to tread the earth as angels, to seek out heaven this side of the sky. But they who race above shall stumble in the dark, and fall from grace."
Eric Stanton: Go on. Sounds good.
June Mills: "Then love alone can make the fallen angel rise. For only two together can enter Paradise."
- Crédits fousThe opening credits appear on the screen as a series of road signs seen through the windshield of a bus driving at night time.
- ConnexionsFeatured in Biography: Linda Darnell: Hollywood's Fallen Angel (1999)
- Bandes originalesSlowly
Music by David Raksin
Lyrics by Kermit Goell
Sung by Dick Haymes (uncredited)
[Continually played on the jukebox at Pop's]
Meilleurs choix
- How long is Fallen Angel?Alimenté par Alexa
Détails
- Date de sortie
- Pays d’origine
- Langue
- Aussi connu sous le nom de
- ¿Ángel o diablo?
- Lieux de tournage
- Watson Drug Store - 116 E. Chapman Avenue, Orange, Californie, États-Unis(June stops at a Rexall drug store)
- Société de production
- Voir plus de crédits d'entreprise sur IMDbPro
Box-office
- Budget
- 1 075 000 $US (estimé)
- Durée1 heure 38 minutes
- Couleur
- Rapport de forme
- 1.37 : 1
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