Tonight's movie was "Black Angel"(1946), starring Dan Duryea, June Vincent and Peter Lorre, found in a search for "Universal Noir Collection". Universal Studios was not known for their Noirs, and this was an unusual one compared to what we've seen recently, soft boiled rather than hard and with elements of music and romance to go along with the crime. Duryea plays "Martin Blair", a talented songwriter and pianist who's been driven to drink by his scheming wife "Mavis Marlowe" (Constance Dowling), a cheater who is blackmailing the man she sleeps with (John Phillips). Marlowe is a singer, she and Blair had a top nightclub act before their marriage ran aground. The movie opens with a fantastic shot of Duryea looking up at her apartment window, several floors above in a Wilshire Boulevard high rise. The camera then zooms via his eyesight all the way up the side of the building and through the window and into her living room, stopping to frame an ornate chandelier. Watching it, I thought "Man, this is how they did it before CGI" - long before in fact - and it looks incredible. A great shot to open the movie.
Now, with the way Mavis Marlowe is behaving, i.e. cheating and blackmailing, and the fact that this is a Noir, you know it won't be long before she turns up dead, and she does, shortly after Duryea attempts to pay her a visit. He's hoping to reconcile but is drunk as usual. Mavis has the doorman bar him from the building. Duryea is thrown out but as he is leaving he sees another man enter and head for Mavis's apartment. This is the guy Mavis is blackmailing. Duryea doesn't know this but we do. Sometime in between Duryea's confrontation with the doorman and the entrance of the Other Man, Mavis Marlowe is murdered. Who done it? - ahh, the question and point of all Noir films.
All evidence points to the blackmailed man (Phillips). Mavis was hard up for money and had turned to blackmail, threatening to tell Phillip's wife she was sleeping with him. He was tired of paying her off and was seen by two people - Dan Duryea and the doorman - entering the building just before Mavis was murdered. He's gotta be the killer, right? Broderick Crawford sure thinks so. He's the lead detective on the case and has Phillips dead to rights. In sticking with Noir formula, it's not long before Phillips is facing a jury verdict : guilty, and is then sentenced to die in the electric chair. Seems to be the theme this week, lol.
Phillips swears that Mavis was already dead when he entered her apartment. He also described a black pearl brooch that was on her blouse but was gone when the police arrived. He believes that if the brooch can be located it will prove his innocence, but the cops don't believe it ever existed. June Vincent does, however. She is Phillips' beautiful wife, who remains loyal even though he was cheating on her with the dead woman. Vincent sets out to find the missing brooch. On that score, the first person she turns to for help is the alcoholic Duryea, who sobers up in a hurry when he sees that Vincent is a stunner and is available due to the circumstances. He doesn't try to horn in on her right away, as she tells him she's faithful to her husband - the whole reason she's trying to find the brooch in order to exonerate him. So Duryea's not really a bad guy, and he agrees to help, but he makes it clear he's interested in case Vincent changes her mind.
Broderick Crawford, younger and hipper, more "jazzy" (if that makes sense) than he was on "Highway Patrol", is sympathetic to Vincent's search, even if he feels it's pointless. He has a piece of evidence, a matchbook with a handwritten phone number, that was found inside Mavis' apartment. He shows this to June Vincent, who calls the number to find out it's for a nightclub owned by the shady Peter Lorre (here we go again with the crooked nightclub owner!). It turns out that Mavis was a singer there. The joint was also frequented by Vincent's husband Phillips. That's where he met Mavis. Were they perhaps involved in some shady dealings with Peter Lorre? Isn't everything shady that involves Lorre? Well, maybe except for "Mr. Moto", but I disgress....
The story will now switch gears into musical/romance, as Dan Duryea (a pianist, remember) and June Vincent (like Mavis, a singer) team up to form a duo. They audition under false names for a gig at Lorre's club. He likes them, they get the job, and soon they're a hit, packing the house night after night. During this period (thirty minutes in the film), they grow closer. Duryea is hoping Vincent will forget about her husband on death row, who's to be executed within days (here we go again). "It's time you faced facts", he tells her. "I'm sorry to say it, but your husband is guilty. We'll never find that brooch because it doesn't exist". But Vincent is sure that it does, and in fact, she thinks Peter Lorre the club owner has it locked up in his wall safe that he seems so ultra-paranoid about.
Vincent plans out a scheme to get close to Lorre, to find out the combination to his safe. Then, when he is away, she will open it and see what's in there - possibly the brooch! Duryea agrees to help with her deception, but only because he hopes - when the brooch isn't found as he believes it won't be - that Vincent will finally give up, let her husband go, and marry him.
That's all I can tell you about this stylish and romantic gem, or mini-gem I should say, because it's not perfect. There is a possible red herring or two, depending on how you look at certain plot twists, but in all it's a nice little discovery from director Roy Wiliam Neill, who made his name (it says on IMDB) helming Sherlock Holmes films, where the emphasis was on deduction rather than rousing action. The same is true here in "Black Angel", where most of the criminal activity takes place in the first few minutes, followed by the lengthy quest to locate the brooch. Duryea and Vincent share good chemistry as the musical detective duo.
There isn't the violence or tough-talk that we see in a lot of Noirs. The main threat comes from Lorre's broad shouldered bouncer (real life middleweight champ Tommy Steele), but he's thankfully not a complete savage as was William Bendix in last night's flick. Universal and director Neill seem to be going for Suave rather than Psychotic. There is a velvety texture to the photography as well as the story. I'll be looking for more Universal Noir as well as for more movies with June Vincent, who we've never seen before but who is very good. Dan Duryea was great in everything he ever did, but you already knew that. Two Big Thumbs Up, then, for "Black Angel". This completes our little Noir Fest of the last few nights. I hit a gold mine there with my recent searches and will be on the lookout for more, because as with Westerns, Horror and Sci-Fi, you can never have too much Noir. //////
Elizabeth, I am glad to see your post from a little while ago. That's great that you will be filming the show tonight, and that you've been on such a steady run creatively and professionally. Have fun (I just now see you're in the Green Room enjoying the snacks, haha). I've got just enough daylight left to head up to Aliso for a quick one, so here I go......
See you tonight at the Usual Time!
Tons of love. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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