Jean is No Angel

Ambulance driver Frank Jessup (Robert Mitchum) is wooed by Diane Tremayne (Jean Simmons) after he responds to an emergency call involving Diane's stepmother Catherine (Barbara O'Neil). Diane convinces him to accept a job with her family as a chauffeur, ostensibly to help Frank earn enough money to open a garage. However, Diane has other plans for Frank.  Our film this week is Angel Face (1953).

One of the great attractions of this film is the presence of three really strong women.  Mona Freeman, who finally gets to play a character with gumption; Jean Simmons playing the determined murderess; and Barbara O'Neill as the bane of Ms. Simmons existence.  These are all performances worthy of these excellent actresses.

Jean Simmons stars as the malevolent Diane, who hungers to again be alone with her father.  In the way is her wealthy stepmother, Catherine.  When Diane meets Frank Jessup, she sees him as a possible accomplice in the removal of her stepmother from Earth. Ms. Simmons is excellent in the role that she really didn't want. She was under contract to Howard Hughes, who was furious at Ms. Simmons for cutting her hair, and with 18 days left on her contract, forced her into this film. Mr. Hughes told director Otto Preminger to make the set as uncomfortable for Ms. Simmons as he could, so Mr. Preminger felt quite comfortable slapping Ms. Simmons one day when he was annoyed with her.  He came to regret his actions - Robert Mitchum punched him back in retribution (TCM article).

Once Diane sees Frank, she is determined to lock him in.  That means getting him away from his long-time girlfriend, Mary Wilton (Mona Freeman). Frank is quick to cheat on Mary - we wondered how many times he had done this before. While Mary is willing to give him the benefit of the doubt in the beginning, a meeting with Diane makes Mary question her feelings for Frank.  Ms. Freeman plays the character with resolve.  She's no meek mouse allowing a man to get away with anything.  She wants her man to love her, not every female in the vicinity.

Catherine Tremayne, on the other hand, is satisfied with being second in her husband's life. She's aware that her writer-husband (who's been unable to produce a book for years) married her for her money. But he has affection for her, She is generous to him, and to Diane, but Diane is obsessed with her father, and sees Catherine as a barrier to her relationship with her father. Barbara O'Neil paints a portrait of a warm woman who is being maligned by her ungrateful stepdaughter.

Which brings us to the male members of the cast.  Robert Mitchum does a good job playing a not very strong man - Diane especially leads him around by the nose.  Shortly after we meet Frank, he's lying to his long-time girlfriend - and we don't trust him. Frank is a fairly unambitious man. He's interested in Diane, but it's a lazy kind of interest.  

Herbert Marshall (Charles Tremayne) is a good companion to Frank - he too is subservient to the women in his life - both Diane and Catherine.  Charles is weak and has lost any drive he might have had. One can see Frank becoming the same person in later years. 

The story was loosely based on the case of real-life case of Beulah Louise Overell and George Gollum who were accused of killing her parents (AFI Catalog).  The New York Times review by Howard Thompson (H.H.T.) was unenthusiastic, but this is an excellent, dark movie, with references to Out of the Past, Double Indemnity, and The Postman Always Rings Twice, without being a copy of any of them.  For more detailed information on the film, I invite you to view Eddie Muller's Noir Alley intro and outro to the film's airing.  Here's a trailer to give you a peek at the picture.

John Joins the RAF

Peter Penrose (John Mills) arrives at a military base, prepared to take on duties of an RAF flyer during World War II. He meets David Archdale (Michael Redgrave), his new roommate, and the two become fast friends. David is courting "Toddy" Todd (Rosamund John), while Peter is dating Iris Winterton (Renee Asherson). But what will be the effect of the war on their relationships. Our film this time out is The Way to the Stars (1945) [titled Johnny in the Clouds in the United States].

This is a quiet film, which portrays the work of the RAF pilots with sympathy and dignity. It opens after the war has ended. The barracks are deserted; there is a sadness and desolation in the abandoned airbase. Did we not know better, we might assume that the war was lost (you can view the opening in the clip below). This scene reminded us of the moment in The Best Years of Our Lives when Fred Derry finds the airfield of derelict planes. There is the same sense of a lost past.

We then fade back to 1940, and the arrival of our protagonist, Peter. At this juncture in the film, there is some joy. These men are committed to what they need to do, and look at it as the great adventure of their lives. It's not long before Mr. Mills is showing us, primarily through his reactions, that there is no adventure in their duties - just pain and loss. Sure, this is an English film, and there is a bit of "stiff upper lip" but it is clear that this stoicism is required to do the job, not because Mr. Mills or Mr. Redgrave are unaware and unafraid.

The film uses the arrival of Americans as a contrast to the English soldiers.  Joe Friselli (Bonar Colleano) begins as the original ugly American. He is the epitome of phrase "over-paid, over-sexed, over-fed, and over here." His friend, Johnny Hollis (Douglass Montgomery) is more sedate, and is embarrassed by his friend's bravado. But like their British counterparts, the American soon discover that their boasts of taking the German's down quickly are just that - idle talk. They begin to take on the sobriety of their UK colleagues, and even apologize for their vainglory.

We've seen Douglass Montgomery before; we was using the name Kent Douglass in Waterloo Bridge (the studio didn't want him confused with Robert Montgomery), but when he left America to live in the UK, he went back to his own name. We were not impressed with him in his earlier film, but he is quite good here. Johnny has a dignity and ease that Mr. Montgomery makes apparent. He loves his wife and son, he also cares about the people he meets in England. He becomes the symbol of the caring American that Joe Friselli will need to emulate.

The credits make it clear that the film is written with some experience behind it. Terrence Rattigan, the screenwriter, was himself an RAF tail gunner. Scenario writer Richard Sherman was a Captain in the military (assumedly, the US as he was American). But all the participants had experienced the war firsthand. This TCM article describes an incident in which Mr. Rattigan and director Anthony Asquith experienced a bombing raid.

The Way to the Stars introduced two future stars: Jean Simmons and Trevor Howard both have small roles in the film. Also new to film was Bonar Colleano; he too was introduced in the film, but his career ended prematurely with his early death in 1958 in an auto accident. The film also features appearances by many notable English actors, including Stanley Holloway (Mr. Palmer) (who would become best known to American audiences as Mr. Doolittle in My Fair Lady (1964)), Felix Aylmer (Reverend Charles Moss), Basil Radford (Tiny Williams) (probably remembered as the cricket aficionado Charters in The Lady Vanishes (1938)), Joyce Carey (Miss Winterton) and Renee Asherson (Iris Winterton).

The film is also exceptional in that it is a war film that never shows you the war. We see the aftermath of the battles, not the battles themselves. And the only scene that really shows the machinery of war at all is one of Johnny in his airplane. Even the romances of the piece focus on them within the context of the war. The Way to the Stars is careful to not lose the focus. This is about men at war - it is not about the war, nor is it about their love-lives. It is a story of survival, pure and simple.

Though the film was not successful in the U.S. (and is mostly forgotten here today), it is well regarded in the U.K. (See his BFI Screenonline discussion for the British view of the film today) and did well there on its release.

We really recommend that you give this The Way to the Stars a viewing. As promised, here is the opening of the film, with the abandoned barracks of 1946 and the arrival of the troops in 1940:

Stewart Stalks Jean... and Visa Versa

Footsteps in the Fog (1955) opens on a funeral.  One of the mourners seems particularly moved by the events.  He is Stephen Lowry (Stewart Granger), whose wife died suddenly of gastreoenteritis.  His friends, Alfred Travers (David MacDonald) and Travers' daughter Elizabeth (Belinda Lee), rally to the Lowry home to show their support.  They are accompanied by barrister David MacDonald (Bill Travers).  In spite of the fact that Elizabeth is adored by David, she is in love with Stephen, and is now wondering if she can reveal her affections.  Once Stephen is alone, however, we learn that the late Mrs. Lowry, who was considerably older than her handsome husband, did not die innocently.  And Stephen is quite enjoying his freedom and the fortune that came to him with his wife's death.

Stephen has several servants.  One of them is a rather careless, lazy girl, Lily Watkins (Jean Simmons), who the cook, Mrs. Park (Marjorie Rhodes) and the butler, Grimes (Norman Macowan) have to keep their eyes on.  But Lily isn't entirely inept.  She's managed to discover what no one else even suspects - that her master has poisoned his wife.  And Lily intends to use the information to her own advantage.  So, while Lily rids the house of the other servants, and blackmails her employer into becoming his lover, Stephen is contemplating ways in which he can rid himself of Lily.

When we discussed A Yank at Oxford, we talked about the ways in which filming in the United Kingdom helped the studios to use up monies that were legally tied up in that country.  Footsteps in the Fog was filmed in the UK, with local crew and actors for that very reason.  According to this TCM article, Stewart Granger was especially keen to return home and suggested that he and his wife, Jean Simmons, would star in it.  Though ambilient about both the script and director (Arthur Lubin was best known for the Francis, the Talking Mule series), the couple accepted the part, and Granger worked with a screenwriter in England to make the script (based on a short story, "The Interruption," by W.W. Jacobsmore) palatable to him and Simmons.  It is a technically lovely movie, however - glorious technicolor and splendid costuming.  It could have been an excellent film, had it had a believable script.

The Grangers reservations about the script is certainly understandable.  The female characters, Lily and Elizabeth, are both fairly stupid, and the ending (which we won't discuss - I like to avoid spoilers) doesn't really work all that well.  Even Granger's character makes one wonder how he actually managed to plot the demise of his late wife - he isn't exactly a rocket scientist.  That being said, Jean Simmons - given what she has to work with - is very good as Lily.  This was her fourth film with husband Granger.  They met on the set of Caesar and Cleopatra (1945), where Simmons had a bit part, and also worked together in Adam and Evelyne (1949) and Young Bess (1953).  Footsteps in the Fog was their final film together; they would divorce in 1960.  This obituary from The Independent goes into more detail on the life of Ms. Simmons.  A brilliant actress, best known for her roles in Elmer Gantry, The Big Country, and Spartacus, she died in 2010 of lung cancer at age 83. 

Belinda Lee worked steadily in UK films, then moved to Italy to be with her lover.  While there, she starred in Constantine and the Cross (1961) with Cornel Wilde.  She died that same year, age 25 in a car accident.  While she is quite pretty, given the limitations of her role, it's hard to judge her overall abilities.  Quite frankly, the more talented Simmons drives her from memory.

We'll close with a trailer from the film: