Angel Face (1953 film)

Frank Jessup (played by Robert Mitchum) makes his living driving an ambulance, but he dreams of running his own repair shop, fixing sports cars. One evening, while responding to an emergency call, he meets a beautiful heiress, Diane Tremayne (Jean Simmons). One date leads to another, and before long Frank has alienated his intended, Mary Wilton (Mona Freeman). And when the Tremayne family offer Frank a job as a chauffeur/mechanic, with his own rooms on the estate, he accepts.

One afternoon, as Diane's father and stepmother start their car to drive to town, their vehicle mysteriously reverses when geared to drive forward. As a result, it careens backwards down a steep cliff, violently killing both occupants. Since Diane is the sole heir to their fortune, she comes under suspicion for murder. Also, because authorities suspect the vehicle's transmission was toyed with, suspicion is cast on Frank. The defense attorney (Leon Ames) for Frank and Diane urges they marry so that neither defendant can be forced to testify against the other.

The trial ends in acquittal. However, Frank's increasing discomfort regarding Diane influences his decision to end their sham marriage. Consequently, Diane's mental condition deteriorates, and her sense of guilt elicits her own confession to Frank that she was behind the mechanical manipulation that caused the death of her parents. In the end, Frank makes one last trip to the Tremayne estate to clean out his rooms. He then waits for a taxi to take him to a bus station, but Diane offers to give him a ride instead. Once she puts the car in gear, however, Diane accelerates backwards, crashing down the same cliff where her parents were killed. As a result, Frank and Diane perish.

• Robert Mitchum as Frank Jessup
• Jean Simmons as Diane Tremayne
• Mona Freeman as Mary Wilton
• Herbert Marshall as Charles Tremayne, Diane's father
• Leon Ames as Fred Barrett, Frank and Diane's defense attorney
• Barbara O'Neil as Catherine Tremayne, Diane's stepmother
• Kenneth Tobey as Bill, Frank's fellow ambulance driver
• Raymond Greenleaf as Arthur Vance, Catherine Tremayne's estate attorney
• Griff Barnett as judge presiding over the trial of Frank and Diane
• Robert Gist as Miller, forensic expert on automobile mechanics who testifies during the trial
• Morgan Farley as inquisitive juror who asks two questions during the trial
• Jim Backus as District Attorney Judson, in charge of prosecuting Frank and Diane

Uncredited (in order of appearance):

In 2018 on Turner Classic Movies Noir Alley, host Eddie Muller claimed that RKO studio boss Howard Hughes hired director Otto Preminger expressly for the purpose of torturing Jean Simmons. According to one of his biographers, Chris Fujiwara, Preminger had a notorious reputation as a "bully" on the set. And since Simmons had no intention of renewing her soon-to-expire contract with RKO, Hughes sought to punish her by pairing her up with the tyrannical director. However, according to Simmons' husband, Stewart Granger, "she enjoyed [making] the film. She adored Mitchum and used to tell me what a good actor he was."[5]

Early in the film, there is a scene where the script called for Robert Mitchum to slap a hysterical Jean Simmons across the face. Because of Preminger's dissatisfaction with Simmons' reaction, the scene required multiple takes before Mitchum finally became fed up. When Preminger again called "Once more!", Mitchum spun around, facing Preminger, and shouted, "Once more?" He then slapped Preminger's face, hard. The director quickly retreated from the set, demanding Mitchum be fired. But instead, "he was told to go back and finish shooting the picture."[6]

Production began June 18, 1952, with a budget of under one million dollars and a production schedule of just 18 days. This was accomplished chiefly because of the efficiency of cameraman Harry Stradling, known in Hollywood as "the fastest cinematographer in town."[7] Editing and post-production were completed by the end of September, and previews were held in early December 1952, with write-ups appearing throughout the month in Box Office, The Film Daily, The Hollywood Reporter, Motion Picture Herald and Variety. The film was finally released February 11, 1953.

Nowadays the film receives mostly positive reviews.[8][9][10] Dave Kehr from the Chicago Reader writes: "This intense Freudian melodrama by Otto Preminger (1953) is one of the forgotten masterworks of film noir... The film is a disturbingly cool, rational investigation of the terrors of sexuality...The sets, characters, and actions are extremely stylized, yet Preminger's moving camera gives them a frightening unity and fluidity, tracing a straight, clean line to a cliff top for one of the most audacious endings in film history."[11] Noir historian Alain Silver writes: "In Otto Preminger’s work sexuality may be either therapeutic or destructive. Angel Face epitomizes the latter quality.... Preminger does not suggest that Frank is a hapless victim. Rather his mise-en-scène, which repeatedly frames the figures in obliquely angled medium shots against the depth of field created by the expensive furnishings of the Tremayne mansion, and Mitchum’s subdued portrayal engender an atmosphere of fatality."[12]

Film critic Paul Brenner writes, "Preminger transforms a second rate James M. Cain murder plot, re-orchestrating this textbook tale of passion and murder into a haunting and haunted refrain. The by then clichéd story line is pared away and brought down to an elemental level—there is not a wasted scene in the film—and the story's familiarity breeds an aftertaste of inevitability and doom. The hallucinogenic nature of the proceedings is accented with Preminger's direction and camerawork, having actors drift from foreground to background or having the camera track to fluid and suffocating close-ups. Preminger, ever the mesmerizer, weaves his style into a half-dreamt haze of nightmare."[13]

Shortly before his death, critic Robin Wood named it as one of his top 10 films.[14]

In 1963, Jean-Luc Godard listed it as the 8th best American Sound film.[15]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Angel Face (1953 film).

• Angel Face at the American Film Institute Catalog
• Angel Face at IMDb
• Angel Face at AllMovie
• Angel Face at the TCM Movie Database
• Angel Face at TV Guide (1987 write-up was originally published in The Motion Picture Guide)
• Angel Face film trailer on YouTube