Blu-ray Review Angel Face Blu-ray Review (1 Viewer)

[Matt Hough]

Angel Face is an Otto Preminger film noir which has grown in stature since its initial release.



Angel Face (1952)



Released: 11 Feb 1953
Rated: Approved
Runtime: 91 min




Director: Otto Preminger
Genre: Crime, Drama, Film-Noir



Cast: Robert Mitchum, Jean Simmons, Mona Freeman
Writer(s): Frank S. Nugent, Oscar Millard, Chester Erskine



Plot: Ambulance driver Frank Jessup is ensnared in the schemes of the sensuous but dangerous Diane Tremayne.



IMDB rating: 7.2
MetaScore: N/A





Disc Information



Studio: Other
Distributed By: Warner Archive
Video Resolution: 1080P/AVC



Aspect Ratio: 1.37:1
Audio: English 2.0 DTS-HDMA



Subtitles: English SDH...

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[ahollis]

Great review. I received this yesterday. It's on my weekend watch list.

 

[benbess]

Saw this yesterday in the recent blu-ray, which is amazingly from the original camera negative, giving us A+ PQ. I've been a fan of Jean Simmons since I saw her in the 1946 version of Great Expectations as a kid, almost half a century ago. Also a fan of Robert Mitchum for almost as long. This noir took a couple of reversals I didn't see coming. From my pov this is one of the key noirs from the classic era of genre. My rating on the movie itself is an A-.

Matt Hough writes in the perceptive review above:

"....From a story by Chester Erskine, the screenplay was written by Frank Nugent and Oscar Millard, and in it, they’ve created one of film noir’s most perplexing femme fatales. Diane Tremayne’s beautiful face is a mask hiding one of the most diabolical plotters in all of noir; unlike so many of her contemporaries whose scheming is overt and obvious, she plots and plans with interior precision, and her mind is always thinking, one or two chess moves ahead of the people she’s hoodwinking and keeping a straight, sincere face all the time while doing her worst. And she wants Frank in the worst way, even though he’s only mildly interested and once he’s scoped her character, knows she’s a ticking time bomb and tries to steer clear (in vain, of course). Director Otto Preminger was hired by RKO studio head Howard Hughes to make life miserable for Jean Simmons since she refused to sign another term contract with the studio and Hughes wanted to punish her, but despite this dastardly motivation, he has turned in a solid directorial effort. Two horrific death scenes are mesmerizing in their visceral viciousness, and the climactic courtroom proceedings are pushed along with alacrity. There’s also a rather pathetic wedding in a prison hospital ward that’s the antithesis of blissful..."