Diane tries to avoid prison while Marie is a first offender in these two recent releases from Warner Archive.
Otto Preminger‘s Angel Face (1952)
Ambulances are the anti-ice cream trucks. Hear one of them coming and it’s never a good sign, yet for Catherine (Barbara O’Neill) in Angel Face it’s only a close call. For ambulance driver, Frank (Robert Mitchum), it’s deadly.
It’s not the sound of an ambulance that ushers in Frank’s downfall, though, but the sound of a piano played by Catherine’s stepdaughter, Diane (Jean Simmons). From the moment Frank engages her in conversation, Frank’s fate is sealed, yet it’s the femme fatale (and not the schmuck) who ultimately vies for viewer sympathy, in a turn of events that would’ve never seemed possible given how Diane behaves for a large chunk of the film.
The first time I saw Angel Face was part of a Criterion Channel series on Mitchum and, in terms of a film I would suggest for someone who’s new to Mitchum’s work, I don’t think Angel Face is the best showcase of his abilities. At the same time, though, I do think that assessment is colored by how unlikable Frank is, as this guy who’s so secure in the patriarchy that he doesn’t see how badly he’s being played by Diane, who wants her stepmother killed and could use Frank’s help to do it. Mitchum’s performance is consistent. He’s a real person, with all his manhandling and macho superiority, but Simmons is angel face. She rules this movie, and sells her character’s arc so well (and it would’ve been an amazing arc for anyone but not everyone could’ve pulled it off).
Not to be overlooked but Mona Freeman is fantastic, too, in a supporting role as the good girl to Simmons’ bad girl who – in the film’s best scene – gets bamboozled into having lunch with Diane. It’s not always a given that the “good girl” in a love triangle gets to be as shrewd and poised as her competition but Freeman more than holds her own, whether she’s in a scene with Simmons or Mitchum.
Carried over from an earlier DVD release of the film, Angel Face comes with a commentary by TCM host, Eddie Mueller, who runs through the different screenwriters who worked on the film, with Frank Nugent and Oscar Millard getting final credit. He also shares that neither Mitchum nor Simmons enjoyed working with Preminger. While watching Angel Face, it was the film’s subversion of gender roles that impressed me the most, but, after listening to Mueller, I gained a new appreciation for what the film has to say about class.
John Cromwell‘s Caged (1950)
The whole idea behind Angel Face is that no one with a face as angelic as Diane’s could have it out for their stepmother. The trailer for Caged tries to assert that if a woman’s in jail, it’s because of a man. While it’s a nice thought (and occasionally true), it’s also patronizing. Heaven forbid a women be capable of committing a crime all by themselves.
Caged has a similar problem to Orange is the New Black, in that the main character isn’t necessarily the most interesting one. In Caged, that person is Marie (Eleanor Parker), who’s in jail for being an accessory to armed robbery. It was her husband who committed the crime. Marie didn’t know what he was planning, but now her husband is dead, Marie’s in jail, and (as she learns during her medical exam) she’s also two months pregnant.
Marie definitely starts out under the impression that she’s better than the other girls, but does that change? It’s hard to say. Every time Parker seems like she might be settling into the role she overacts and, instead of a gradual transformation, her character seems to change in bits and starts that aren’t consistent (at the end there’s a voice change that comes out of nowhere). The supporting performances are incredible, especially Gertrude Hoffman as a lifer who picks her moments to speak up, but Parker is too unsure in the leading role.
Warner Archive’s Blu-ray includes the Looney Tunes short, “Big House Bunny,” which features Bugs Bunny, Yosemite Sam, and some unpleasant death row “jokes.” There’s also an audio recording of the Screen Director’s Playhouse Radio Broadcast of Caged from 1951, in which Parker and Hope Emerson (who plays sadistic matron, Harper) reprise their roles from the film. Thanks to Parker’s introduction I also learned that Virginia Kellogg (who’s credited as co-screenwriter with Bernard C. Schoenfeld) wrote the expose on a woman’s prison which inspired the film. It’s a shame there’s no commentary, because context like that would be great to know.
Angel Face and Caged are available on Blu-ray now from Warner Archive and to purchase from Movie Zyng.
+++ Warner Archive provided me with a free copy of the Blu-Rays I reviewed in this article. The opinions I share are my own. +++
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