Film Noir February: Angel Face (1952)

This month we examine film noir featuring a variety of leading ladies known for the genre.

RODNEY BOWCOCK: Robert Mitchum stars as Frank Jessup; he’s an ex-race car driver currently driving an ambulance hoping to save money. When he is called to the estate of a wealthy author for an accidental gas poisoning, he meets nineteen year old Diane Tremayne, who strikes him with her beauty and sensuality. Innocently, Frank begins spending time with Diane instead of his steady girlfriend Mary (Mona Freeman).

Before long, Frank quits his job as an ambulance driver and accepts a position as a chauffeur for the Tremayne family. While in his employ, Diane’s father and stepmother die in a freak auto accident. While it is suspected that Frank and Diane had conspired to tamper with the transmission of the car, this evidence is circumstantial and at the suggestion of Diane’s defense attorney, the two are married before the trial is to begin. While eventually acquitted of the crime, Frank and Diane are forced to reckon with their marriage and the perceived guilt of the circumstances which led them to this point in their lives.

You know something? You're a pretty nice guy, for a girl.

SAMANTHA GLASSER: Frank is passive throughout the film. He acquiesces again and again, even though it is clear his preference is to forget Diane and go back to Mary. This behavior makes Diane seem strong by comparison, but she is a needy character, constantly asking things of others but never accomplishing them herself.

RB: Well, Frank is passive, but he also behaves the way most men would when a young and beautiful, albeit emotionally unstable woman shows an interest in them. We know from the start that Frank will not enjoy a happy life, yet he still cannot resist Diane’s charms. It’s a common trope in film noir, probably because it’s a common trope in life.

SG: Upon reflection, Diane suffered a lot of trauma in her life, first during the London Blitz and the loss of her mother, then acclimating to a step-mother and a new country, then suffering through her loneliness. I know it was common during this time for people to "keep calm and carry on" but modern eyes can see what a victim she is and wish someone had noticed sooner.

RB: These points are mentioned in brief in the film, but Diane’s motivation is never really explained or is there ever an attempt to. It’s only upon thinking about the movie after watching it that these things become clear.

SG: The cast is very good. I recognized Barbara O'Neil, though couldn't place her until I checked IMDB to find she played Scarlett O'Hara's mother in Gone With the Wind. Mona Freeman is a delight in Guest Wife, which Kino Lorber recently released on Blu-ray. Jim Backus is back prosecuting criminals (remember him in The Big Operator?). Leon Ames is authoritative as the defense lawyer. Recently I found myself discussing Jean Simmons with a fellow millennial and she thought I was talking about Gene Simmons from Kiss, which caused a lot of confusion and amusement. I wonder how many other people come upon this actress and chuckle.

RB: Strangely, I had never considered that the two shared phonetically identical names. Kenneth Tobey also appears in the film as Franks’ fellow ambulance driver. Tobey had a widespread and fascinating career, ranging from Hopalong Cassidy westerns in the 40’s, all the way through to later well-regarded films such as Airplane, Gremlins, Big Top Pee-wee and Honey I Blew Up The Kid. He also starred in the baby-boomer favorite series Whirlybirds. Broadway trained, his career spans hundreds of credits and would make for a fascinating biography.

SG: Funny, I didn't recognize him while watching, but now that you mention Gremlins, I can picture him in that.

It is clear the storywriter Chester Erskine wrote for entertainment value rather than realism. No lawyer would advise a client to marry someone institutionalized in the mental ward. If someone is mentally unfit to give a statement to the police, they're unfit to enter into a marital contract. Further, the judge sustains the prosecutor's objection to testimony regarding the expert witness's conflict of interest for also representing the insurance company which stands to profit on his stance that the accident was intentional.

RB: Never allow facts to get in the way of what can propel storytelling! Erksine, who was also a director and producer wrote the screenplays for a small but unique assortment of films including The Egg and I and A Girl in Every Port (the lackluster 1952 one with Groucho Marx, Marie Wilson and William Bendix).

SG: This film might be qualified as noir lite. It is ambiguous throughout, so no one has overtly sinister intentions. Dimitri Tiomkin's lovely, moody music helps illustrate underlying intrigue but without it we would be completely clueless that this was that kind of movie.

RB: I don’t get too hung up on the particulars of what makes a movie considered film noir or not, but to me this was more of a melodrama than a noir. I really didn’t see any elements of it actually being a noir, but who am I to say?

SG: The behind-the-scenes drama is more overtly disturbing than this plot. Producer Howard Hughes had eyes for Jean Simmons (like many other young starlets of this era) but she rejected his advances. Furious, he instructed director Otto Preminger to inflict revenge. Preminger coached Mitchum to treat her roughly, and shot slapping scenes over and over, to such an extreme that during one take he whirled around and slapped the director in frustration, asking him if that was the kind of slap he meant. The incident caused the rest of the shoot to be uncomfortable and unpleasant.

RB: Supposedly, Preminger demanded that Mitchum be fired from the film, but Hughes refused and demanded that the film be finished with the cast intact. According to her husband at the time, Farley Granger, Simmons enjoyed working with Mitchum on the film, perhaps, at least partially because he had stuck up for her.

SG: French director Jean Luc Goddard counted this film among his top 10 favorites. For me, it was just another movie. Three stars.

RB: I never would consider this a favorite, but it had plenty of twists and turns that genuinely shocked and surprised me. Three and a half stars.