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billhare
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Fallen Angel (1945)
« Thread started on: Oct 31st, 2009, 12:46pm » |
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Alice Faye Noir and Brooding Darnell as Femme Fatale
The 1945 film noir drama “Fallen Angel” was seen by Twentieth-Century Fox’s boss Darryl F. Zanuck as an opportunity to show a new Alice Faye as a transformation to dramatic star from her hugely successful previous career as the studio’s premiere leading lady of musicals.
Alice Faye’s meteoric rise to stardom beginning as a Great Depression is the stuff of which inspiration is generated. Young Alice Leppert, son of a New York City policeman, used her smooth, mellow voice to become a network singing sensation before Twentieth Century-Fox came calling and cinema stardom along with it.
A big assist for Faye becoming a great international superstar goes to the first American crooner, Rudy Vallee, for giving the blonde actress her major show business break. Author and former actor Robert Kendall, a friend of Faye’s for years, described the important Vallee link and what it meant to her.
“Alice’s career began as a chorus girl in the Broadway production of ‘George White’s Scandals,’” Kendall explained. “At a cast party when the show closed Alice chanced to make a recording of the song ’Mimi’ just for fun. Rudy Vallee heard her sing that number.”
Vallee was slated for an engagement at a Cleveland Hotel. He invited her to accompany him. Vallee wanted to see how she would be received by a nightclub audience.
“When Alice sang the audience responded with thunderous applause,” Kendall related. “It was then that Vallee knew that Alice Faye was star material.”
Vallee was then star of The Fleischmann Hour, a popular network radio show. It was his practice to introduce talent discoveries. One was Kate Smith. Another, ironically enough, was the man who would eventually become Alice Faye’s husband, Phil Harris. He introduced Alice with huge audience reaction the result.
When Vallee was called by Fox to come to Hollywood to film “George White’s Scandals” (1934) as Faye starred alongside the crooner and comedian Jimmy Durante. She became a rarity in two respects, starring in her first film effort and doing it while still in her teens.
The thirties and forties achieved major results for Darryl F. Zanuck at Fox with Alice Faye becoming the number one female star on the lot. Musicals were her forte as she appeared alongside Tyrone Power, Don Ameche, and John Payne in such major hits as “In Old Chicago” (1937), “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” (1938), “Rose of Washington Square” (1939), “Tin Pan Alley” (1940), “That Night in Rio” (1941), “Week-end in Havana” (1941), and “Hello Frisco, Hello” (1943).
With Faye films raking in solid profits Zanuck pushed his star full throttle into a whirlwind pace. When asked about the surge of activity Faye delivered her friendly laugh and exclaimed, “They didn’t call it Twentieth Penitentiary Fox for nothing.”
Conversion to Drama and Film Noir
At the age of 29, at a time when Faye had introduced more hit songs into films than anyone before or after her, Zanuck decided to move her into a more concentrated dramatic role. She diligently rehearsed one song, which was to be her lone musical contribution to the film, and therein a controversy surfaced that has not diminished speculation better than six decades later.
Arthur Nicholson, who until his recent death was president of the British based Alice Faye Appreciation Society, revealed that she was supposed to sing the hit tune “Slowly” in a beach scene with leading man Dana Andrews.
“The idea was to have Alice sing the song with Andrews and for the popular male vocalist of the forties Dick Haymes to be heard singing it from a jukebox,” Nicholson explained. “The reason is that the film’s other female star, Linda Darnell, wanted to listen to ’Slowly’ on the jukebox and it was her favorite song. This furnished a contrast since Linda and Alice were the two women in Dana Andrews’ life.”
After Faye had worked diligently on the song it was decided by Zanuck and director Otto Preminger to eliminate her rendering of “Slowly.” The reason generally given for the decision was that, given Faye’s full-fledged introduction into straight drama, it would be better not to remind audiences of her musical star status. The decision upset Faye to the point that it is given as at least part of the reason why she retired from films after “Fallen Angel” and did not return until almost two decades later when she starred with Tom Ewell, Pat Boone, and Pamela Tiffin in the 1962 Fox release “State Fair.”
Strong Supporting Woman, Femme Fatale of Sorts
Dana Andrews begins “Fallen Angel” as a drifting con man seeking to chisel a dollar whenever and wherever he can. The first scene finds him being caught by a bus driver pretending to be asleep so he can ride beyond the price of his ticket to San Francisco.
In the novel by Marty Holland the character Andrew plays, Eric Stanton, is forcibly evicted by the driver. In the film the driver gives him a gesture reminiscent of an umpire tossing an arguing manager from a game, and so fate connects fast buck artist Stanton with the small town of Walton, located a hundred miles south of San Francisco.
Andrews’ Eric Stanton needs fast money. His agile brain connects him to fellow con artist John Carradine, who is a circuit traveler claiming to connect love ones to the dead. Andrews performs with such public relations gusto that, after he fills the local auditorium for Carradine, he is offered a regular job traveling the circuit with him.
Under other circumstances Andrews might have accepted as Carradine clearly admires his talents and the prospect of some impressive money looms in the future, but by then he has set his sights on a local woman with a contingent of local admirers. The object of Andrews’ fascination is dark-haired, voluptuous, and tough as nails Linda Darnell.
Darnell works as a waitress at the local restaurant run by Pop, played by Percy Kilbride, who would in the fifties click big opposite Marjorie Main in the successful Ma and Pa Kettle series from Universal. Pop has a crush on the younger woman as does another regular patron, a former New York City police detective played by Charles Bickford, who has come to California allegedly to improve his health. Meanwhile Darnell is also seen dating traveling salesman Bruce Cabot.
Andrews experiences Darnell’s toughness in his first visit to Pop’s restaurant. The gentle and accommodating Kilbride tells new man in town that he does not have to pay for his coffee. Darnell tartly demurs, telling her boss that he had provided a coffee for the town’s new visitor and that he should have to pay for it.
Far from being repulsed by Darnell’s toughness, Andrews is instead instantly smitten. He feels a camaraderie. She is, like him, someone from the wrong side of the tracks and he can relate to her, which means that Darnell has picked up one more male admirer in Walton, and this one is determined to proceed to great length to win her over.
Alice Faye emerges as a designated financial pigeon for Andrews. Her deceased father has left his two daughters financially secure, Alice and older sister Anne Revere. A far more skeptical Revere is dubious about Andrews’ motivation when he begins dating her sister.
The wily Revere has every reason to be skeptical. Tough girl Darnell, after telling Andrews about her impoverished youth in San Diego, delivers an ultimatum. She wants marriage to a man of means, not a drifter who will move her from town to town. Andrews will either obtain sufficient funds to keep her in style or she will have nothing to do with him. She had earlier coldly abandoned Bruce Cabot for not measuring up to her expectations.
A dramatic contrast is established between two women, a gentle trusting soul in Alice Faye not about to give her heart without purposeful sincerity and a tough opportunist in Linda Darnell. When Faye begins seeing a good side in Andrews that he at one point tells her does not exist, she assumes the role of the strong supporting woman, determined to convince him to see a side of him that she knows ultimately exists.
Faye’s character is reminiscent of Jane Wyman in another 1945 release, “The Lost Weekend.” Wyman is certain that a man of purpose and meaning exists beyond the alcoholic fate into which Ray Milland has fallen. Faye sees similar good in the drifting con artist, look after oneself Andrews. They both see different men beyond those that people of lesser vision and patience observe, including, ironically enough, the men themselves.
Faye fits into the classic definition of the strong supporting woman of film noir, but what about Darnell? Can she be classified as a femme fatale? She is definitely tough, uncompromising, and selfish. Darnell feels no compassion for Faye after learning that Andrews’ game plan revolves around a brief sham marriage to grab her money.
If Darnell is a femme fatale then it is one without the noticeable deadly sociopath’s demeanor of classic noir leading ladies Barbara Stanwyck in “Double Indemnity” and Jane Greer in “Out of the Past.” Murder is an intrinsic part of doing business to Stanwyck and Greer. Tough Darnell could therefore be called a femme fatale with qualification. She is a femme fatale of sorts.
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billhare
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« Reply #1 on: Oct 31st, 2009, 12:46pm » |
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Darnell Killed, Andrews a Prime Suspect
Andrews was seen and heard arguing with Darnell the very night that she was killed. He is fingered as a murder suspect by former New York City detective Charles Bickford, who was called upon by local Walton police authorities to take charge of the investigation.
While in San Francisco with Faye, Andrews is convinced that he needs to continue his traveling ways, telling his wife about his long pattern of scruples deficiency.
At that point Faye’s inner strength and persuasiveness rises to the fore as she convinces Andrews that just because he has experienced tough times in the past is no reason that he cannot improve his character. She convinces him that continuing to run will only bury him in a deeper mire, asserting that he needs to go back to Walton and clear himself.
Andrews is very shrewd. It is just that previously his intelligence had been put to negative rather than positive results.
When he begins his own investigation he discovers that Bickford is anything but the former upstanding police officer he represented himself to be. He ties Bickford’s past record to his permanent fixture status at Pop’s Restaurant and his shared zeal with Stella to play her favorite song “Slowly” on the jukebox.
“Fallen Angel” is a noir gem with characters sharply delineated by Marty Holland in the novel and Harry Kleiner with his screen adaptation. As was the case in her famous musical roles opposite Tyrone Power, Don Ameche, and John Payne, her quiet strength propels Dana Andrews in the right direction.
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Steve-O
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« Reply #2 on: Oct 31st, 2009, 1:17pm » |
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Fantastic job Bill... I'm looking forward to the new book!
I still think the most impressive thing (besides Linda's legs) is the fact that the film takes place over a couple of days. A lot of drama crammed into a short period of time.
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Film Noir of the Week
"I shoulda kicked your teeth in."
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Steve-O
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« Reply #3 on: Oct 31st, 2009, 2:15pm » |
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The movie is also featured nicely on this R2 Noir set coming out in a few days:
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Film Noir of the Week
"I shoulda kicked your teeth in."
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Noirdame
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Re: Fallen Angel (1945)
« Reply #4 on: Nov 19th, 2009, 8:37pm » |
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One of the things I really liked about "Fallen Angel" is how so much of it was filmed on location and in broad daylight. I understand the importance and emphasis in noir regarding scenes at night and set in the city, but to me, country and/or small town settings can actually be quite foreboding too since there seems to be more of a condensed feeling and perhaps less effective places to go to for help or to hide.
Dana Andrews was great and it was interesting for him to play a man who was a bit more shady than in "Laura" (1944). Linda Darnell for me was a revelation as Stella, having only seen her in "The Mark Of Zorro", (1940), "Blood And Sand" (1941) and "A Letter To Three Wives" (1949). She was totally convincing as the dark femme fatale in strong contrast to Alice Faye's blonde goodness. Faye, by the way, was also very good and I don't think her part was reduced as much as not as emphasized as Darnell's.
The book sounds interesting!
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Surf-Bat
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Re: Fallen Angel (1945)
« Reply #5 on: Nov 23rd, 2009, 01:14am » |
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Is it me or is Otto Preminger one of the more underrated(and underappreciated) noir directors? I think every noir he directed was expertly crafted and completely absorbing.
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Raven
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Re: Fallen Angel (1945)
« Reply #6 on: Nov 23rd, 2009, 12:40pm » |
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You may have a point but I happened to have watched a documentary about RKO last night and Otto just about got run off the set of Angel Face over complaints from Jean Simmons and co-star Robert Mitchum.
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You are trying to make me go soft. Well, you can save it. I don't go soft for anybody.
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