Angel Face (1953 film)

Frank Jessup is an ambulance driver who dreams of running his own repair shop for sportscars. One evening, while responding to an emergency call, he meets beautiful heiress Diane Tremayne. Frank soon alienates his girlfriend, Mary Wilton. When the Tremayne family offers Frank a job as a chauffeur, 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. It careens backwards down a steep cliff, killing both occupants. As Diane is the sole heir to their fortune, she comes under suspicion for murder. Frank is also suspected of having tampered with the vehicle's transmission. Fred Barrett, their defense attorney, persuades them to marry to curry the jury's favor.

The district attorney has no real concrete evidence, and they are found not guilty. Afterward, Frank tells Diane that he is ending their sham marriage. He tries to make up with Mary, but she wants nothing to do with him. Diane, overcome with a sense of guilt, goes to Barrett and tells him she wishes to have her statement written down and witnessed; she states that she and she alone committed the murders. However, Barrett informs her that she cannot be tried again, due to double jeopardy. When Frank returns to the Tremayne estate to get his belongings. He has called for a taxi, but Diane offers to drive him to the station. He accepts. After putting the car in gear, Diane accelerates backwards, crashing down the cliff.

• 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 the judge
• Robert Gist as Miller, the forensic expert on automobile mechanics
• Morgan Farley as a juror who asks two questions during the trial
• Jim Backus as Judson, the district attorney prosecuting Frank and Diane
• Frank Kumagai as Ito, the Tremaynes' butler

Turner Classic Movies host Eddie Muller reported that RKO studio boss Howard Hughes hired director Otto Preminger expressly for the purpose of torturing Jean Simmons because she did not intend to renew her contract with RKO. 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] Robert Mitchum was also reputed to have had a difficult working relationship with Preminger on the set.[6]

Production began on June 18, 1952, with a budget of under $1,000,000 and a production schedule of just 18 days because of cinematographer Harry Stradling's reputation for quick work.[7] Principal photography ended in mid-July 1952, and editing and post-production were completed by the end of September. Previews were held in early December 1952, with notices appearing throughout the month in Box Office, The Film Daily, The Hollywood Reporter, Motion Picture Herald and Variety.

The film was released on February 11, 1953.

In a contemporary review for The New York Times, critic Howard Thompson called Angel Face "an exasperating blend of genuine talent, occasional perceptiveness and turgid psychological claptrap" and wrote: "[A] nice, taut story idea have been set adrift in a pretentious Freudian mist that wafts through the handsomely mounted proceedings with disastrous results. ... [A] peculiar, off-hand surrender to fuzzy character motivations, deliberately confusing incidents and a meandering pace upset this quality apple cart. And the absurdly dismal finale seems a perfect crowning touch for all that precedes it."[8]

Dave Kehr from the Chicago Reader wrote in 1985: "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."[9] Film noir historian Alain Silver wrote: "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."[10]

Shortly before his death, critic Robin Wood named Angel Face as one of his top 10 films.[11]

In 1963, Jean-Luc Godard listed Angel Face as the eighth-best American sound film.[12]

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