Fallen Angel

Director Otto Preminger and leading man Dana Andrews made three top-tier noirs together, including Fallen Angel, whose popularity undoubtedly suffered in the wake of their giant hit, Laura, released eleven months earlier. Andrews here plays Eric Stanton, a penniless drifter stuck in Walton, California, where he soon finds himself juggling a trio of women: sexy waitress Stella (Linda Darnell) who only wants a rich man, wealthy ingenue June Mills (Alice Faye) who falls in love with him, and June’s spinster sister Clara (Anne Revere) who suspects Stanton’s up to no good. When one of the three women is murdered, a small town whodunit ensues. Preminger creates a poetic coastal town intimacy, complete with diners, jukeboxes, and moonlit beaches where several romantic conversations are enhanced by the crashing tide. The sisters’ simple lives of contentment and safety starkly contrast the rapacity of Stanton and Stella; when the sisters calmly enter the bank vault to procure the contents of their safe deposit box (a beautifully staged sequence), Stanton can barely hide his excitement. Neither he nor Stella belong in Walton. Cinematographer Joseph LaShelle creates beautiful noir images like the sensually choreographed kiss in the smoky dance hall, the emergence of Clara from swamp-like shadows at a critical moment, and the iconic shots of Stanton and June gazing wistfully out of a seedy hotel window.