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Bereamic Awesome Movie

InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Rosie Searle It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Sue Blankenship I won't give it away, but I didn't see that coming. In a way, I feel like I wasted two hours just to see that, but Jean Simmons' performance was worth it. Most of the time she played the good girl, but here, she is positively diabolical. Robert Mitchum gives a solid performance playing Robert Mitchum, although I thought that Frank was smarter than he ended up being. I don't know about California's rules regarding jury trials in 1953 or any other year, but I've never heard of a juror asking questions during a trial--seems like that would be grounds for a mistrial, but of course this is a movie.

jc-osms Apparently shot in 18 days to ensure Jean Simmons filmed her part while still under contract to producer Howard Hughes, this is a fine film noir with a particularly memorable ending.I wasn't sure I could believe Robert Mitchum, the king of world-weary sardonic-ism, falling so readily for the youthful charms of evil step-daughter Simmons, especially with a smart, pretty and loving girl of his own, but once I surrendered this point, it was easy, rather like Mitchum's ambulance-driver, to be persuaded to follow the plot here through to the bitter end.I actually considered both leads to be somewhat miscast in the film, Simmons effect dulled somewhat by a rather ugly helmet of a wig and the dialogue lacks the snap of a Hammett, Chandler or even a Spillane, but the narrative is intriguing and the ambivalent natures of both the main parts strangely compelling, plus, like I said there's a surprise, no make that shock ending, to finish things off with a knockout punch.Director Preminger mixes up some staple noir elements of a femme fatale, her stooge of a male admirer, sex, murder and mystery, employing big-close-ups, atmospheric lighting and crisply shot monochromatic sets, perhaps only faltering over a slightly dull, over-technical courtroom scene, and the miscasting already mentioned. Nevertheless, the story crackles along and I doubt many will anticipate the climax, which certainly caught me off-guard and yet in retrospect, delivers a finish true to the genre's often nihilistic traits.Mitchum of course is naturally very good as the ensnared Frank, the piano-playing Simmons, dressed throughout in black and white outfits, perhaps stressing the duality of her nature, a little less so.

Lechuguilla This is one of those films wherein the drama is collapsed into a couple of major scenes, one at the mid-point plot turn and the other near the end. Otherwise, "Angel Face" is an unexceptional B-noir movie about a man named Frank Jessup (Robert Mitchum) caught between good girl and bad girl.The story has a noir quality to it because it continues the noir tradition wherein good girls work for a living and bad girls don't. In "Angel Face", schemer Diane Tremayne (Jean Simmons) lives in a big house with a rich father and a dislike for her stepmother, well played by Barbara O'Neil. Ambulance driver Frank Jessup comes along at just the right time to play into Diane's schemes. Most of the women characters have the power in this story, which makes it a little different from comparable noir dramas of the post WWII era.The plot plods along with a dirge-like progression to the big event near the film's middle, beyond which is an intrusive courtroom trial that interrupts the plot flow. The climax is interesting, but I'm not sure it's worth the long wait to get there. Major characters aren't very interesting, and they're a tad bumbling and shallow.The B&W noir lighting is probably the best element of the film. But the cinematography is plagued by a lot of outdoor scenes that use rear-screen projection, which makes the visuals look very dated. Background music is dreary, funereal piano music for the most part. Performances are acceptable, with the possible exception of Mitchum who seems wooden and out of place.I would describe "Angel Face" as a rather typical post-WWII melodrama. It's low-budget and very slow-moving. It's not a badly produced film by any means. But I really couldn't get that interested in the story, with its self-absorbed characters and their soap opera problems.

Jackson Booth-Millard From director Otto Preminger (Laura, Carmen Jones, Anatomy of a Murder), this was a near film noir style film that I saw listed in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, so I was definitely going to watch it. Basically, in Beverly Hills, Mrs. Catherine Tremayne (Barbara O'Neil) was found mysteriously poisoned by gas in her home, and ambulance driver Frank Jessup (Robert Mitchum) is there at the cliff side estate to treat her, the police believe it was accidental, but she believes someone is trying to kill her. Before Frank leaves he notices her beautiful English stepdaughter Diane (Jean Simmons) playing the piano, and he slaps her when she gets hysterical, she slaps him back, and later he is unaware she is following him, and they sit together in a diner and begin flirting. Eventually, after not being to get her on the phone, Frank turns down an offer from his girl friend Mary Wilton (Mona Freeman) to go to dinner together, and he instead goes to dinner with Diane who tells him all about her novelist father who she cares for, and she also offers to help him pay for his own garage he wants to own. Diane next invites Mary for lunch and tells her that she and Frank got together, this does cause her to feel less trustworthy towards him, and he does lie to Mary again about another date they have together. While Mary ditches him for longtime admirer Bill Crompton (Kenneth Tobey), and after having words with her Frank does forgive Diane, who convinces her parents to hire him as the chauffeur, and she also tries to convince her stepmother of the garage proposal. Diane tells him that Catherine, who was considering the proposal, threw it in the trash, and apparently would fire him and lock her up if she found out they were with each other, she is sure her stepmother has control over her weak father Charles (Herbert Marshall). Frank refuses to believe her next story that Catherine tried to kill her with gas from the fireplace, and next day he tells Mary he is going to leave his job and Diane, and when she realises he is going she begs him to stay, and eventually he agrees until he can plan what to do next. Diane is seen taking something out of the car, and when Catherine and Charles get in the car together she tries to put it into gear, but the car instead screeches backwards, and they both fall to death down the cliff behind them. Both Diane and Frank are arrested for suspected murder, if she is found innocent Diane stands to inherit Catherine's fortune, but she is at the moment in a prison hospital having apparently suffered a nervous breakdown. Catherine's lawyer Arthur Vance (Raymond Greenleaf) brings in renowned defence lawyer Fred Barrett (Leon Ames) to defend the heiress, but before the trial starts Frank and Diane get married as part of the case to make them look more innocent. Barrett does indeed prove himself a worthy defence lawyer planting ideas in the jurors heads that they planned to elope, that anybody could have tampered with the car's transmission and steering mechanisms, and of course that they are just an ordinary loving couple. Frank and Diane are found innocent by the jury, but once they are back home he wants an immediate divorce, and she finally confesses about her hatred for Catherine who in her head was getting more attention than she personally did from her father. Frank insists he will return to Mary, but she of course is still leaning towards Bill, while Diane goes back to the office of Barrett and wants to make a witnessed confession to the murder of her parents, to which she is guilty, but he reminds her of double jeopardy. Returning home Diane finds Frank packed and ready to go to Mexico, he refuses to let her come with him, but agrees to let her drive him to the station, but she deliberately forces the car back into reverse, and they too go off the cliff and fall to their deaths. Also starring Griff Barnett as The Judge, Robert Gist as Miller and Jim Backus as District Attorney Judson. Mitchum is really good as the moody driver stuck in the middle of trouble, and Simmons is absolutely perfect as the beautiful Femme Fetale who manipulates everyone to her advantage and is not bothered who gets hurt emotionally or physically, the thrilling and twisted moments are well done, the court case sequence is interesting, and the dark romance is a big hook, it is certainly a must see crime drama. Very good!