By David in TN
Friday, May 1, 2020 at 6:31:00 P.M. EDT
TCM’s Film Noir of the Week Saturday Night-Sunday Morning at Midnight ET and 10 a.m. ET is Otto Preminger’s Fallen Angel (1945), starring Alice Faye, Dana Andrews, and Linda Darnell, with Charles Bickford, Bruce Cabot, Anne Revere, John Carradine and Percy Kilbride.
Film Noir Guide: “Director Preminger was hoping for another Laura with this nicely acted, but mostly dull, film noir.
“Andrews plays a has-been publicity agent, a self-described ‘washout at 30,’ forced to get off the bus in a small town on his way to San Francisco because he doesn’t have enough money to continue the trip. He takes a job publicizing a seance for a phony medium (Carradine) and falls for a sultry waitress (Darnell), who has a collection of suckers drooling over her, including a slot machine operator (Cabot), her fawning boss (Kilbride) and a tough former New York City cop (Bickford).
“Carradine, who has collected information on almost everyone in town, including two wealthy sisters (Faye and Revere), leaves for San Francisco after a successful show. Andrews stays behind hoping to use that information to bilk the two spinsters out of their dough so he can marry Darnell, who desperately wants to be made an honest woman. Of course, his plan backfires, and he finds himself a murder suspect.
“Noir veteran Andrews is convincing as the good guy-bad guy, and Darnell is red hot as the femme fatale. This was Faye’s first starring role in a non-musical, but Darnell got the rave reviews. Faye retired soon after the film’s release, and didn’t appear on a screen again until 1962 when she played Pat Boone’s mother in State Fair.”
David in TN: Dana Andrews is supposed to be playing something of a sleazy con man, but late in the film he turns into the characterization he gave as the police detective in Laura (1944).
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TCM's Film Noir of the Week Saturday Night-Sunday Morning at Midnight ET and 10 am ET is Michael Curtiz's Mildred Pierce (1945), Starring Joan Crawford, Zachary Scott, Jack Carson, Eve Arden, Ann Blyth, Bruce Bennett, Moroni Olsen, Jo Ann Marlowe.
Film Noir Guide: "This brilliantly directed noir opens with someone emptying a revolver into restauranteur Crawfird's second husband (Scott) and Crawford trying to set up her business partner (Carson) as the fall guy. After all of the suspects are summoned downtown, homicide inspector Olsen drags the sordid tale out of the businesswoman by informing her that he has charged her first husband (Bennett) with the murder. Crawford is sensational (winning a Best Actress Oscar for her performance, beating out Gene Tierney for another great film noir, Leave Her to Heave) as the dedicated mom determined to provide for her children (Blyth and Marlowe). After Bennett leaves her for a wealthy woman, Crawford takes a job as a waitress, despite the embarrassment it causes Blyth, her spoiled older daughter. Crawford's ambition, however, drives her to open a chain of restaurants; in the process, she falls in love with professional loafer Scott, who's dollar poor and real estate rich. At last, Crawford reaches a position where, she thinks, Blyth should be content and proud of her workaholic mother. But things quickly deteriorate after Crawford, again catering to Blyth's social climbing obsession, reluctantly marries playboy Scott, leading to the scoundrel's untimely death. Blyth is wonderfully bitchy as Crawford's femme fatale daughter, and Arden is entertaining in her usual wisecracking sidekick role. Both received Oscar nominations for Best Supporting Actress. The film also garnered nominations for Best Picture (losing out to The Lost Weekend), Best Screenplay and best Black and White Cinematography."
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