The Tarnished Angels (1957) User Reviews

I'll Take This Sirk-Stack-Malone-Hudson Story

[ccthemovieman-1 · 8/10 · 22 August 2006]

Even though I haven't seen this movie in quite a while, it's ironic I would write this review shortly after viewing "Written On The Wind" for the first time recently. "Ironic" because of the main actors star in both films: Robert Stack, Rock Hudson and Dorothy Malone, and both films were directed by Douglas Sirk.

Personally, I thought this film was far more interesting than the more well-known WOTW. This was a better story.

Dorothy Malone, for one, looked a heckuva lot better in this movie. She had some classic beauty and shows it here more than the trampy role in the other film.

I also preferred this film because it had some fascinating and dramatic flying scenes, things I have never seen before on film. Apparently, they had these 1930s air races in which planes few around pylons, almost like a horse race on land. This is the only film I've seen that pictured.

Another thing I enjoyed was Hudson's dramatic story at the end of the movie which, at first, seemed ridiculously melodramatic but was said so well that I found in very compelling, and it tied the whole story together.

I also appreciated Malone doing the right thing at the end, telling off Hudson for coming on to her, since she was a married woman. This is one of the few films - including those in the 1950s - in which adultery is NOT treated mater-of-factly.

Crying circus

[Lejink · 8/10 · 15 November 2012]

Great for me to see this rarely-scheduled Douglas Sirk melodrama from his rich, late 50's period and it didn't disappoint. Taking as its subject the uncommon lifestyles of the participants in the popular flying-circus entertainments of the 20's and 30's, it's not long before the familiar Sirk themes of conflicting passions, human weakness and sacrifice raise their heads above the parapet.

For some reason shot in black and white, perhaps to better enhance the period setting, I still firmly believe that all Sirk's work should be seen in glorious colour, no one filled these CinemaScope screens better than he in the affluent 50's. Only just lasting 90 minutes, it crams a lot into its time-frame, drawing convincing character-sketches of the lead parties, Rock Hudson's maverick journalist, generous of spirit and loquacious but seeking love in the person of the beautiful, sexy Dorothy Malone parachutist extraordinaire, she frustrated by the lack of attention she and her son get from her obsessive pilot husband Robert Stack, who'd rather fly above the clouds than engage with earth-dwellers. Throw in his grease-monkey Jack Carson who may have had a fling with Malone in the past and hangs around as much for the scraps she throws him as his duty to Stack and a Mr Big aircraft-owner with designs of his own on Malone and you have an eternal quadrangle ripe for tragedy.

Sure enough, it happens along and spectacularly too, straightening out the lives of the survivors, even if not, I suspect for the better. The acting is first rate, Hudson again showing the depth that Sirk always seemed to draw out of him, handling long-speeches and a drunken scene with ease. Stack again displays his facility for acting against type, playing another emotionally stunted individual masquerading behind his good looks and bravura outlook. Malone however is the epicentre of the movie, the action revolves all around her and it's no wonder with her sexiness and sense of vulnerability, a killer combination for the menfolk here.

Sirk's direction is excellent, juxtaposing thrilling action sequences in the air with oddly contrasting backgrounds - it's no coincidence that the drama is played out in New Orleans at Mardi-Gras time, with the use of masks often showing up in foreground and background as a metaphor for the concealed passions on display here. There are several memorable scenes, like when Hudson and Malone's first illicit kiss is disturbed jarringly by a masked party-goer and Stack's adoring son trapped on a fairground airplane-ride just as his father loses control of his real-life plane.

So there you have it, another engrossing examination of fallible individuals, expertly purveyed by the best Hollywood director of drama in the 50's. Not as soap-sudsy as some of Sirk's other movies of the period, perhaps due to the literary source of the story, but engrossing from take-off to landing.

Swinging in the Wind

[wes-connors · 6/10 · 17 August 2010]

Depression-era newspaper reporter Rock Hudson (as Burke Devlin) rescues a boy from teasing, and returns him to his parents. As it turns out, nine-year-old Chris Olsen (as Jack) is the son of World War I hero Robert Stack (as Roger Shumann), who is using his piloting muscle in a New Orleans carnival act known as "The Flying Shumanns". Mr. Stack's wife, curvaceously beautiful blonde Dorothy Malone (as LaVerne), does a parachute stunt. And, the couple's mechanic, chubby Jack Carson (as Jiggs), keeps the plane's engine humming. The quartet appears hale and hearty, but are destitute when Mr. Carson spends their meager funds on a pair of boots. Instead of moving into a "Hooverville", they go to live in Mr. Hudson's small apartment.

Hudson, who drinks and smokes like a reporter should, wants to do a story on "The Flying Shumanns" for the Picayune.

In flashback, we learn Malone married Stack (whilst in the "family way") instead of Carson, who was the man teased for being young Olsen's real father in the opening segment. Carson is still in love with Malone, who seems to be torn between Hudson and Stack. But, that's not all. Stack's aviating rival, rotund Robert Middleton (as Matt Ord), is also in love with Malone. And, after a flying tragedy involving Stack and Middleton's pilot (Troy Donahue), Malone is sent to prostitute herself in exchange for a new plane (for Stack). This tests how much each of the men - Hudson, Stack, Carson, Middleton - love Malone.

And, it may also reveal who Malone will take to the closing credits…

William Faulkner's "The Tarnished Angels" reunites director Douglas Sirk and Hudson with two of their "Written on the Wind" (1956) co-stars, Malone and Stack. They are certainly attractive, but seem more like they are posturing for a 1950s (where these folks should have been put) glamour magazine than starring as 1930s New Orleans depression-era denizens. The most ludicrous sequence involves Malone showing off her underwear during an impossible to imagine parachute and swing stunt - the arm muscles required for this feat would be considerable. The carnival backdrop is a highlight, it's used well in the opening and climax.

****** The Tarnished Angels (11/21/57) Douglas Sirk ~ Rock Hudson, Dorothy Malone, Robert Stack, Jack Carson

Tarnished Angels is a great film

[taguanutivory · 20 September 2005]

I was fortunate enough to attend a screening of "The Tarnished Angels," on a wide screen with a fresh print, at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City back in 1980, with no less than Douglas Sirk himself invited by MOMA as a special guest. The film blew everybody away emotionally; Hudson, Stack, and Malone all give performances that are equally tough and vulnerable, but the grandeur of Sirk's mise-en-scene, which really has to be seen in a theater on a wide screen to be fully appreciated, is a textbook example of the art of telling a story in film terms with both force and grace. Don't mind the other reviewer; Faulkner himself, according to Sirk, said it was the best adaptation of his work he had seen in films.

A slight departure for director-extraordinarre Douglas Sirk

[sabby · 6/10 · 29 April 1999]

Although Douglas Sirk was Universal's house director in the mid-late 1950's turning out glossy soap after glossy soap (1954's "Magnificent Obsession", 1955's "All That Heaven Allows", 1959's "Imitation of Life"), he took a slight diversion with "The Tarnished Angels". Besides being in black and white, this actioner is much less sudsy than Sirk's other films of the era. Using the prinipal players from his 1956 epic soap "Written on the Wind", he creates a fast-paced melodrama following the adventures of a family of airplane stunt people and the reporter who is drawn into their world. Robert Stack is Roger Shumann, a stunt pilot, Dorothy Malone is his beautiful parachutist wife, and Rock Hudson is Burke Devlin, the intrigued reporter.

Roger is devasated when he crashes his prized plane, so another pilot(Robert Middleton) makes Roger a deal. He'll give Roger his plane in exchange for Roger's wife,LaVerne(Malone). Meanwhile, a used and abused LaVerne falls for Burke. There's not much here at all by way of plot. In fact, the film is really dull in that aspect. But what gives this movie legs are the brilliantly directed action sequences(some of the best ever captured on celluloid)and tremendous performances from Stack, Malone, and Hudson. Malone is especially amazing, following up her Oscar-win the previous year for "Written on the Wind". Mediocre film, interesting especially to Sirk fans.

Powerful

[zetes · 9/10 · 5 November 2001]

Let's get this straight right off the bat: I have read William Faulkner's novel Pylon, and Douglas Sirk's cinematic adaptaion of it, Tarnished Angels, lives in the original's shadow. Pylon, which for some reason is the only Faulkner novel currently out of print, is one of that glorious author's best works. Still, the film is an excellent achievement. The story's power may be a bit lessened, but Sirk's direction as well as the performances of Rock Hudson, Dorothy Malone, Robert Stack, and Jack Carson make up for it. And while the plot suffers from reductions, the dialogue, much of which, I'm pretty sure, was not in the novel, is very good. The best scene in the film is Rock Hudson's drunken and passionate speech in the news room near the end of the film. In the novel, the equivalent of that speech is found in a garbage can. The final image of the novel is of the newspaper editor reading Burke Devlin's impassioned, prosaic description of the final pylon race. It's a perfect ending for a novel, but the screenwriter here was right in putting those words, or at least the idea of those words, back into Devlin's mouth.

Tarnished Angels is equal in artistic accomplishment to the other great Sirk film I've seen, Written on the Wind. Both star Rock Hudson, Robert Stack, and Dorothy Malone, but there is a big difference between the two. Written on the Wind is a florid melodrama, the kind that Sirk was famous for. The colors are almost psychedelic, and the level of melodrama makes it feel like the world is about to end. Tarnished Angles is filmed in black and white, and, while it is melodramatic, it never feels like it's going over the edge. Sirk plays it at a level where you can feel the desperation of the characters (the novel, which isn't as prudish (the film, of course, was made under the Hayes Code), depicts a level of loss and desperation that is simply murder; the ending of the film, which I wouldn't exactly call happy, is a hundred times less depressing than that of the novel). But, unlike in Written on the Wind, it never seems like Sirk is laughing at or making fun of the characters in Tarnished Angels. It seems like he meant this film to be an honest adaptation of a great novel. He succeeded quite well. 9/10.

PS: The Criterion Company recently released Written on the Wind and All That Heaven Allows on DVD. I beg them to release this one next. The version on VHS is cropped from its widescreen glory, and you can tell. It feels very cluttered and claustrophobic, and often the panning and scanning seem choppy. The opening credits keep the widescreen, and it looks like it might be an even more visually spectacular film than I noticed. I really wish that they wouldn't get my hopes up by holding the original aspect ratio through the opening credits. What I want to see one day is the word "CINEMASCOPE" cropped to "EMASC" at the beginning of a film in a 1.33:1 aspect ratio.

Those magnificent men in their flying machines

[blanche-2 · 6/10 · 30 July 2005]

Rock Hudson gave some very good performances in Douglas Sirk-directed movies. "The Tarnished Angels" is no exception, but the movie is heavy going. The "Written on the Wind" crowd is back - Robert Stack, Rock Hudson, and Dorothy Malone. This time, Stack and Malone, who plays his gorgeous wife, are barnstormers - she does exhibition jumps and he, an ex-World War I hero pilot, flies in races around pylons. Everyone is in love with Malone, except, it seems, her husband. I say seems because what is she supposed to think - he married her after throwing a high roll of the dice (she was pregnant with his child at the time, but Jack Carson offered to marry her), and then he pimps her out so that a businessman will let him fly his plane in a race. Hudson, a reporter, falls for Malone along with all the other men. She's miserable enough to let him make out with her.

There are some wonderful flight sequences that are very exciting. On the ground, though, the actors get weighted down with lots of dialogue, most of it melodramatic.

Such an underrated film

[jem132 · 10/10 · 14 June 2009]

While most critics rate "All That Heaven Allows" and "Written On The Wind" as Sirk's best, I found myself most drawn to this film, and I can't wait to see it again. Sirk filmed this drama in black and white Cinemascope as he couldn't get backing for his trademark lush colour as Universal bosses hated the original source material, William Faulkner's novel "Pylon". Black and white 'Scope actually benefits "Tarnished Angels" because it captures the bleakness of both the 30's setting (although the costumes are all 50's) and the character's circumstances. And, as all film noir fans know, an emotionally charged night scene always looks best in shadowy black and white. I found this film the most thematically interesting of all Sirk's, and the characters the most captivating. Dorothy Malone is even better here than in "Written On The Wind", as the ignored wife of Robert Stack's flier, who is king of the skies yet seemingly emotionally barren when he hits the earth. The Shuman's might be one of the most tragic couples in movie history, both desperately in love with each other at cross purposes. Rock Hudson gives perhaps his best performance as alcoholic reporter Devlin, who forges a connection with the sad Malone borne out of mutual loneliness. The direction by Sirk is terrific and he makes the flying scenes thrilling and the emotional scenes breathtaking.

Douglas Sirk For the Win

[gavin6942 · 7/10 · 9 March 2017]

Story of a friendship between an eccentric journalist (Rock Hudson)and a daredevil barnstorming pilot (Robert Stack).

The Universal-International film reunited director Sirk with Stack, Malone, and Hudson, with whom he had collaborated on "Written on the Wind" two years earlier. Sirk chose to shoot "Angels" in black-and-white to help capture the despondent mood of the era in which it is set. Faulkner considered the film to be the best screen adaptation of his work.

The reviews on this film have improved with age, due in part to Sirk really not getting respect until much later (thanks in part to Fassbinder). I found the film to be solid, and would rank it among the very best of Sirk's work. Truly a must-see. Not quite a noir, but still on the edges of that world.

The Blight Stuff

[Piafredux · 10/10 · 12 April 2003]

Alone, during an all night boot camp fire midwatch in a huge, sepulchral building, at one o'clock in the morning I dared (had I gotten caught I'd have done a punishment tour at 'Happy Hour') to switch on the TV in the Master At Arms' office. On came the titles of 'The Tarnished Angels'.

I've been enthralled by it ever since.

It would be a revelation to get to see this film in CinemaScope, but it's one of those few films whose themes seem to be intensified by pan-and-scan: the characters' claustrophobic loneliness in a throng; the pressing anxiety of a child about his parentage; the narrowing, time-running-out bravado of the former war ace; the ache of the mechanic who can fix only aeroplanes but not his timorousness; the naked greed and lust of the depression mogul lucky to have been spared the worst of his era's depredations; the despair of the wife who followed a man and ended up jilted by his corpse, with no place to turn; and the outside-looking-in fascination, desolation, and crashed dreams of a reporter lying torpidly in a pond of bootleg hootch.

Atypical of director Sirk's opus 'The Tarnished Angels' shows his grasp of his medium in the haunting chiaroscuro of black & white, and in the edgy editing of the flying scenes that furnish the only relief from - or should that be masterful exacerbation of - the confining, torturous ties and jealousies, yearnings and flailings that bind the characters in existential angst.

Not much of a plot here, but the acting is to marvel at. Robert Stack's muscular, sexy, once-genuine hero turns to tin before your eyes. Dorothy Malone's aching milk-and-honey farm girl fecundity, horse-traded libido, and lovelessness struggle against the vast flush of the Depression's The Blight Stuff toilet in which her husband's sole skill is no life preserver for his family's plunge into life-and-death, give-and-give, take-and-take despair. Rock Hudson's goodhearted reporter, yearning to find some goodness in humankind, having his search thwarted by the grinder of want and need, loyalty and betrayal, helplessness and manipulation. The mogul frustrated because his only skill is heavy-handed buying and selling (played wonderfully by Robert Middleton - in a diabolical role that makes the bargain in 'Indecent Proposal' look frivolously angelic by comparison), whose physiognomy oozes reptilian menace that cloaks his unrelievable aching to possess one immutable, beautiful, worthy thing.

'The Tarnished Angels' left me feeling as wrung out as the overstressed airframes in its hell-for-leather air race scenes, and quite a bit more grown-up than I was before I'd seen its characters rooting round in the Depression gutters of abasement and debasement.

After my midwatch, near dawn, when I tumbled into my open-bay barracks rack, I couldn't sleep. I wished for an angel to hand me a tin of BrassO for my coming-of-age, tarnishing soul.

Tarnishing friendship

[TheLittleSongbird · 7/10 · 20 July 2020]

Despite its many potential traps, melodrama has been done very well many times on film etc and even to classic level. Douglas Sirk was one of the kings when it came to directors that specialised in melodrama, with his generally realistic treatment of characters, lavish use of colour (some of his work didn't use that though) and far from held back approach to serious subjects being trademarks of his. Know Rock Hudson better from lighter fare, though he was far from inexperienced when it came to the more dramatic roles.

'The Tarnished Angels' is not one of Sirk's finest and there are better melodramas out there. It is a good representation of the actors though and Sirk generally is well served too, even if other films of his show off his trademark touches better. It is not hard to see why William Faulkner, author of the film's source material 'Pylon', thought very highly of 'The Tarnished Angels' and my opinion of it generally leans towards the positive reappraisal it's garnered overtime and not the panning it got from some at the time.

Sure, 'The Tarnished Angels' is not perfect. To me the final quarter is not as interesting as the rest of the film, resulting in some leaden pacing, and the sentiment gets blown into inflated proportions. The ending didn't ring true and felt far-fetched and unrealistically pat, like it was shoe-horned in from another film.

Hudson's character was very underwritten at times, rather embarrassingly so.

On the other hand, 'The Tarnished Angels' looks great. It is one of Sirk's most visually ambitious films, evident in the gorgeously haunting and wonderfully meticulous cinematography that is remarkably subtle at times. Dorothy Malone's look is admittedly anachronistic, with no attempt to make her look like a woman from the 30s where the film is set, but the production design is very handsome all the same. Frank Skinner's music score has a broodiness and melancholy without being too over-scored or too constant. Sirk directs with sensitivity but also understated passion. Personally thought on the most part that the script was fine, thought-probing, at times darkly humorous, at others uncompromisingly biting and at other times sincerely poignant. One of the better moments being Hudson's big monologue.

While the story has its faults later on and is unashamedly melodramatic, to me the emotional impact it had was intense and moving. A sensitive subject handled in a non-shying away fashion. The flying sequences are beautifully shot and excitingly staged. One could argue that the characters are not likeable and hard to care for, that is true but to me they came over as real people with real human conflicts all the same. The moral reversal of Burke and Roger is especially interesting. The acting is very good, even though Burke is underwritten Hudson gives it everything he's got especially in the aforementioned monologue. Robert Stack is a brooding presence while Jack Carson provides some welcome and not too misplaced levity. Malone is affecting in a way that doesn't get over the top.

Overall, well crafted film but didn't bowl me over. 7/10

Wonderful Sirk Melodrama!

[a_chinn · 9/10 · 7 May 2017]

Terrific Douglas Sirk melodrama from the William Faulkner novel "Pylon." I have not read the Faulker book, but I'm guessing it was nowhere as soapy as the film, but as soapy melodrama's go, no one does them better than Douglas Sirk. Robert Stack plays a boozy disillusioned WWI flying ace who now spends his days as a barnstorming pilot at rural carnivals with his neglected parachutist wife, Dorothy Malone, who he only married as a result of a literal roll of the dice. Rock Hudson plays a reporter doing a story on this dysfunctional traveling family of flyers that also includes Jack Carson, Troy Donahue, and William Schallert. Sirk's perchance for over- the-top drama is probably not going to look great to modern viewers, but for fans of classic Hollywood and fans of Sirk in particular, this film is a must see!

Hudson Is Mesmerising

[SwollenThumb · 7/10 · 26 April 2018]

Hudson is mesmerising as newspaper reporter Burke Devlin who is besotted by fly-by-night characters, especially sultry daredevil parachutist LaVerne Schumann (Dorothy Malone). His character is worth all of the others put together. In the acting stakes too he shines brightly, adding nuance to his performance. Unfortunately the script is tarnished especially if we are to believe Hudson's infatuation for LaVerne who proves herself to be mostly unlovable. If you like Depression era dramas, that will help you enjoy this more. And if you like the early world of flying, that will help too. But mostly watch it for Rock Hudson's intelligent performance. Based on a story by William Faulkner.

Tarnished melodrama with unbelievable characters...

[Doylenf · 5/10 · 14 October 2006]

ROBERT STACK is a barnstorming stunt pilot in the '30s who'd been a hero aviator during the first World War. He's abusive to his loyal wife (DOROTHY MALONE) and his expert mechanic (JACK Carson) and anybody he comes into contact with. For some strange reason, newspaperman ROCK HUDSON is interested enough in this threesome to want to do a news story on them as they prepare to enter various air contests. After briefly encountering them, he even puts them up at his place when they're out of lodgings and soon becomes enmeshed in their lives.

But Hudson does deliver a solid monologue at the end when he storms into the newspaper office to give his boss the lowdown on what kind of story he uncovered. It's one of his best moments and he carries it off like a real pro.

Stack plays his sullen heel with his usual brash, solemn demeanor. A flabby looking Jack Carson plays the mechanic who's secretly still in love with Stack's wife, Malone. Malone is quietly effective as the wife who suffers and suffers while Stack's mistreatment goes unchecked, except by Hudson. Surprisingly, this is all taken from a William Faulkner novel which must have had stronger characters and situations than are depicted here.

It's a stormy emotional drama that makes little sense, directed with a certain amount of style by Douglas Sirk even though it does not use his usual trademark--Technicolor. All the emotional strife makes it a pretty heavy-handed, florid melodrama. Hudson's noble turn at the end makes a new woman of Malone, who decides to accept his offer to return to her roots in Iowa with her little son. None of it seems to ring true, at least to me.

Best feature: the flying air scenes are well staged and photographed for maximum effect--but it's hard to care about any of the characters.

Trivia note: TROY DONAHUE has a small role as an ill-fated pilot competing against Stack.

On the debit side, DOROTHY MALONE's costuming and hair style doesn't suggest the 1930s at all, but the 1950s.

The Forgotten Sirk Film...Still Watchable for His Familiar Touch

[EUyeshima · 7/10 · 19 October 2006]

This is the forgotten Douglas Sirk film from his golden period in the 1950's when he made such classic Baroque-style women's pictures as "Magnificent Obsession", "All That Heaven Allows", "Written on the Wind" and "Imitation of Life". The black-and-white 1958 film doesn't have the saturated color palette of Sirk's frequent cinematographer, Russell Metty (who did lens those other films), nor does the story, based on William Faulkner's novel "Pylon", have as strong an orientation toward a female protagonist as the others. Yet, the film has many of the filmmaker's trademark melodramatic flourishes and some superb shot compositions, this time photographed by Irving Glassberg. The result is quite worthwhile and sadly not available yet on DVD.

Set in 1932 New Orleans (though you can hardly tell from the anachronistic 1950's-era wardrobe and sets), the plot focuses on Roger Shumann, a former WWI flying ace who has been relegated to racing around pylons in air shows for prize money. He's married to LaVerne, so in love with Roger that she became a parachute jumper to please him, while raising their son Jack, who worships the ground on which Roger walks. Speaking of hero worship, there is also the dim-witted Jiggs, Roger's loyal mechanic, who holds a torch for LaVerne. Into this dysfunctional band comes local newspaperman Burke Devlin, who smells a good story in reporting on this transient family living hand to mouth to fulfill Roger's intractable need to fly. A lot of emotional gut-punches are thrown among these characters, especially between Roger and LaVerne, until a late moment of clarity seems to arrive too late. The last fifteen minutes contain come far-fetched plot convolutions, but they are in the spirit of the piece.

Sirk reunited three of his stars from 1956's "Written on the Wind" - Rock Hudson, Robert Stack and Dorothy Malone - to play the three principals, so they know how to maintain conviction with more than a touch of Sirk's often maddening soap opera excess. Hudson, in particular, really shines in this sort of material as Devlin, even in a hilariously conceived drunken speech at the end. Stack is his typical jaw-clenching self though with a morbid sense of self-loathing only Sirk could serve up, and Malone is surprisingly sensual as LaVerne, whether fighting off her impulses about Devlin or hanging on to a trapeze bar as she floats off her parachute with her skirt billowing up (a classic shot). Jack Carson plays Jiggs as the pathetically smitten man he is, while Christopher Olsen has a heartbreaking scene where he is stuck on an amusement park ride watching fate deal its hand (trivia - Olsen is Cindy Brady's real-life brother). This isn't an out-and-out great film but still a very watchable entry in the Sirk canon.

The Tarnished Angels

[donmafiason · 10/10 · 7 January 2010]

The Tarnished Angels is a pure melodrama. Black and White excellent cinematography and good performances from all the cast. That's the Douglas Sirk way. Building the story with strong elements and hidden lines about the American way of life and the bitter behind the curtain. The man is a master. Melodrama is a Greek word so you have to know what exactly means. There is a big difference between melodrama and "melo". The film is a masterpiece. Sirk was a director with strong elements of morality. The region 2 DVD from Universal is in very good condition. No extras. The film has guts. The plot is not as simple as it seems with the first view. The scenes with the airplane "battles" are so fast and full of adrenalin. A trio of losers, an alcoholic but deep moralist journalist, a kid with an only friend that was called loneliness and a mindless woman make this film unforgettable. Highly recommended.

Pylon

[bkoganbing · 7/10 · 16 August 2010]

Based on the William Faulkner novel Pylon, The Tarnished Angels reunites Rock Hudson, Robert Stack, and Dorothy Malone three of the four stars who were in Written On The Wind the year before. In many ways the three are continuing the roles they played in that classic.

The Tarnished Angels concerns a group of barnstorming air entertainers during the Depression years. Rock Hudson plays a newspaper reporter from the New Orleans Times Picayune who is at the carnival that they're appearing at and meets Robert Stack a former war ace from World War I who is now doing this kind of air racing and stunt flying for a living. Traveling with him are his son, Chris Olsen, wife Dorothy Malone, and mechanic Jack Carson.

William Faulkner placed himself in the middle of this story and Hudson functions as his character. He sees and observes the characters around him and what he sees is what we read in the book and see on film. Stack is a man obsessed with flying itself above everything, including his own family. Wife Dorothy Malone is a woman with a loose reputation which she doesn't do much to quell rumors about. Her reputation is so bad that the parentage of Chris Olsen is brought into question. Here it's a matter of speculation, in the original novel there is a parachute jumper who is definitely identified as the possible real father of Olsen's character.

Carson is Stack's fecklessly loyal mechanic and there's even some speculation about him being Olsen's father. In any event he's so totally loyal to Stack who occasionally uses him for a doormat that some critics have opined that the relationship between Carson and Stack's character might be gay.

Douglas Sirk who did lush romances for the most part managed the special effects part of the film very well. The air race sequences are well photographed and breathtaking.

I'm not sure how William Faulkner who was still alive when this film came out took to the changes in his novel. It probably was the best Universal could do and still be Code compliant. The Tarnished Angels is more a Douglas Sirk romance than a Faulkner novel, but that isn't necessarily bad.

Written on the sky

[dbdumonteil · 8/10 · 23 April 2009]

After two undistinguished movies ("Battle Hymn" and "interlude" ),Sirk teamed up again with three actors of the fabulous quartet who made "written on the wind" a classic of the fifties.Robert Stack said once that Sirk was his favorite director and Rock Hudson was never better than with Sirk with whom he made 8 movies,including some of the director's best ("wind" "all that Heaven allows" "magnificent obsession").This one was the last one they made together:it is the gloomiest of them all and its bleak black and white is downright depressing.

"Tarnished angels" takes place in dark rooms in the darkest night ,and the thought of Death hangs over the whole film: this dead head which suddenly bursts in the bedroom where Hudson is comforting Malone (absolutely stunning) ,the black birds , flying in the sky on the fateful morning,the coffin they carry on a desert airstrip.In Sirk's follow-up,"a time to love and a time to die" Death will be felt everywhere ,not only on the battle fields ,but also in Berlin in ruins: this empty street where there's only a hearse and a horse while the inhabitants are in the shelter is an exact equivalent of the scene of the coffin at dawn.

He transcends melodrama with his end-of-the-world pictures .The flaming colors of the cars tearing along the oil wells road or of the clothes in "written on the wind " have given way to gray: old crates , washouts ,forgotten heroes(Stack) ,lost illusions (romantic heroine,a reporter who is always drunk :Hudson's hair is all messed up ,and people who think he was a limited inexpressive actor should watch the scene when he "writes" Stack's epitaph in front of his boss and his colleagues .Dorothy Malone,too,found her two best parts in Sirk's movies before ending up as Sharon Stone's lover in "basic instinct " (her reappearance was the only interest of that flick,at least to my eyes,even if it only were for three or four minutes).We feel that Sirk is missing Zarah Leander ,his German star of the thirties and that,among all the American actresses he worked with,Malone was certainly the one who reminded him the most of his lost chanteuse.Although she won the AA for best suooorting actress for the part of Marylee,her portrayal of LaVerne is subtler,deeper ,less clichéd and more moving . Stack is as good as in "wind" :he could not have a child in the former and there was this genial short scene of a kid riding a clockwork horse ;in the latter there's this sublime sequence of his boy in his little plane when his father's crate is crashing.His character is reminiscent of the heroes of the thirties ,these of " heroes for sale" or " I'm a fugitive from a chain gang" ,people who risked their lives for their country and who got a raw deal afterward .

There's a terrifying contrast between the lugubrious atmosphere of the movie and the Mardi Gras festivities;Sirk works with his camera the way a painter does with light ,to create different effects and textures highlights and shadows , recalling sometimes his German era,filming the shadow of the blinds on a face like he used to do in such works as "la Habanera" (1937).

Like this?Try this ......

"The gypsy moths" ,John Frankenheimer (1969)

Lousy, illogic, weak script

[MovieIQTest · 29 June 2018]

Although we got some of the famous actors at that time, but the screenplay was just bad, and the directing was not good either. How could it possible you'd so generously let three adult strangers and a kid you met in a carnival stay in your apartment? You bought two large paper bags of food and groceries for them, with a pretty woman beside you, but when you reached your apartment, the woman simply turned around and walked away. What was that woman's role? An escort? Just served the scene to accompany you back in the midnight? Then....well, what a terrible script with inexplainable and illogic storyline. The dialog felt more like the dialog we only saw in a play on a stage, not a bit natural at all. The original novel must be quite bad already, so when it was so stupidly adapted into a movie script, it became even worse. This film looked more like those movies adapted from those Tennessee Williams' plays, those dialog might feel okay on a stage, but once use them in movies, it's just felt awkward and unnatural.

A simple story

[valadas · 6/10 · 9 January 2022]

Not particularly dramatic or deep. A war pilot hero (First World War) keeps loving airplanes above all in the XX Century thirties and loving them better than his wife and son, He keeps doing airplane races and acrobatics in fairs all over the country. A journalist arrives to do a story about him and ends up to fall in love with his splendourous blonde wife that seems to correspond but changes her mind and feeligs after her husband dies in an awful accident while driving a plane in an air race. And that is all for the story. This movie is well acted and directed but this isn't enough to make it a good movie. Not a bad movie but not particularly good.

Expertly neurotic and strangely troubling

[allyjack · 8/10 · 6 August 1999]

(WARNING - CONTAINS MILD SPOILER) The pylons are pretty striking phallic symbols - which would be a trite observation if not that the movie's highly-strung expressionism encourages it (one admires Sirk not for his subtlety but for his anguished commitment). The overwrought actors - with Stack and Malone almost bursting from their inner tensions and even Hudson transformed into a barely restrained mass of thwarted desire - move among a strangely troubling landscape that contrasts the dusty open spaces of the airfield with a recurrent, psychologically charged use of masks and mirrors and cramped poses in overwhelming settings. When a reveller in a death mask bursts in as Hudson and Malone kiss, it's like their subconscious guilt bursting horribly into the open. Once again, Sirk expertly taps the neuroses of the period, with Stack the ex-war hero neutered and adrift at home: in the opening scene the mechanics torment Stack's son about his supposedly disputed parentage - even though Stack actually is the father; he's so insecure about his love for Malone that he masquerades a swaggering disaffection, even willing to have her prostitute herself: when he goes down, it's like an implosion caused by the sheer weight of it all. A fairly amazing use of melodramatic material, tense with pain and confusion.

Great Actors from the Past

[whpratt1 · 7/10 · 15 August 2006]

Enjoyed this great cast of veteran actors and a very good story about a burned out war pilot, played by Robert Stack, who winds up in a carnival featuring planes flying in races. Stack's sidekick and mechanic is Jack Carson, (Jiggs),"Cat on a Hot Tin Roof",'58, who does everything that Stack desires. Dorothy Malone, is Stacks wife who sort of sky dives in a long white dress and gives all the boys a thrill of their lives in 1958. Rock Hudson,(Burke Devlin),"Darling Lili",'70 is a newspaper reporter who is a drunk and is trying to get a story about this former ace pilot. There is a point in the story which turns me off, it is when Robert Stack needs a new plane and offers his wife to spend the night with Robert Middleton,(Matt Ord),(a real slim ball)

"Cattle King",'63 in order to obtain this plane, a so called sexual trade so to speak. Yet he claims he loves her very much. If you like to look back in the past, and like these actors, this is definitely the film to view.

Slightly too nostalgic and a couple of Sirk-ian clichés

[Dr_Coulardeau · 9/10 · 2 November 2010]

This black and white film is surprising. The action takes place in the early 1930s, prohibition still going on, but even so the film is strangely nostalgic of a time that has fully disappeared at the time the film was made. What makes Douglas Sirk so nostalgic about that past he was so fascinated by? Of course it is planes, and flying, and doing all kinds of silly things with these flying machines to dare the devil and to challenge death as if it were possible to challenge that devilish reaper. The second thing that attracts Sirk is the hero this pilot is, a war hero who has reformed himself and retrained himself into being a pilot for fun, a pilot to entertain crowds by taking risks and flying them in mid air, till one day the plane breaks down and the choice is between a simple crash on the funfair next door and a crash into the sea. That's the kind if choice that only dying people, people doomed to die can face and a hero is the one … but you know the answer to that, and rare are those who can do the right thing at such a moment. The third thing that attracts Sirk is the little boy who follows his father the daredevil that flies planes for the fun of others and his mother, the flying acrobat in the air with no net, no string to catch her, just her know how and courage to do what is to be done not to crash on the ground when she loses – on purpose of course – her parachute. The next thing that attracts Sirk is that immeasurable love between these two persons and the devotion a third person, an outsider, a man from the side feels and makes him play the gallant man not to break that couple but to serve the woman in that final drama of hers and to help the child cope with death and death and death again. A beautiful film with the end of a woman who finds the proper footing she needs to be up to raising her son in a treacherous world but in the memory of his father the flying hero.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne, University Paris 8 Saint Denis, University Paris 12 Créteil, CEGID

THE TARNISHED ANGELS (Douglas Sirk, 1958) ***

[Bunuel1976 · 7/10 · 29 January 2009]

Though exchanging his usual glossy urban surroundings for a rough open-air environment – dealing as it does with vagrant members of an air show/race (which is perhaps why it was shot in black-and-white) – this typical Sirk effort is particularly redolent of his Teutonic background: powerful (indeed often histrionic), moodily-lit and with performances to match (allowing Rock Hudson one of his finest dramatic showcases, most effective towards the end when he gives his newspaper editor boss a piece of his mind). Incidentally, its three stars – Hudson, Robert Stack and Dorothy Malone – had just come off the same director's WRITTEN ON THE WIND (1956); Malone is the woman admired by virtually the entire male cast including her egocentric spouse (ace flyer Stack), his long-suffering mechanic (Jack Carson), hated entrepreneur (Robert Middleton) and, the latest recruit, honest (read alcoholic) reporter Hudson. Also on hand is a young boy, picked on over his doubtful parentage, whom Hudson befriends and offers hospitality to his whole family (eventually tagging along himself after being fired from his job). Malone opens her heart to him one night and he decides to help when Stack has no qualms about his wife ingratiating herself with Middleton for his sake over the acquisition of a new plane (Stack's original vehicle had been destroyed in a crash which also killed Middleton's protégé, Troy Donahue!). After Stack himself perishes in another race and a gloomy luncheon is thrown in his honor, Hudson arranges for Malone and her son to start a new life elsewhere.

Thus, Earthly Glory.

[rmax304823 · 4/10 · 16 August 2010]

Robert Stack is a former war hero, a dedicated, cold-hearted airplane stunt pilot who enters races in 1932 but barely scratches out a living. Dorothy Malone is his wife. Her main job in the act is to parachute out of Stack's airplane, allow her filmy skirt to billow up, and show everyone her undies. Everyone lusts after her -- Jack Carson the pudgy mechanic, and Rock Hudson the reporter covering the family for his Louisiana newspaper. Malone yearns for Stack's love (sob), but begins to turn towards the behemoth Hudson. I can't reveal the end because I couldn't see through my tears.

I know Douglas Sirk has an avid following. I just don't know why. "Written on the Wind" was a long, boring tale. "The Tarnished Angels" is executed in a most perfunctory manner.

The four leads are stereotypical Hollywood stars. They're well known for their well-knownness. They can't be well known for their acting abilities because they're all mediocre in that department.

The story is set in 1932 but you'd never know it. Except for the mean-looking little airplanes, it looks exactly like 1959 -- from Dorothy Malone's hair style and wardrobe to the source music, which is to the early 30s as your image in a carnival distorting mirror is to you. The signs on the cafe wall -- "Fries 15 cents", "Oysters on the half shell, 30 cents" -- appear to have been painted by some prop guy half an hour before the scene was shot.

The story takes place in the Mississippi delta but was obviously filmed in semi-remote areas of California. Nobody sweats. It doesn't rain. There is no sense of place. The extras and bit parts are filled with people from Central Casting.

I haven't read Faulkner's book so I can't comment on how closely the film follows his story, but I imagine that, as usual, much of the novel's enjoyment stems from Faulkner's style, which is impossible to capture in a movie. As it stands, the plot could have easily been bent to fit the format of an afternoon domestic drama.

An exception to these negative comments: two very nicely staged airplane races that Stack participates in. For a few minutes, the film is lifted out of the sludge as the period airplanes buzz around the pylons in exhilarating contests, sometimes smoking and cracking up. During these scenes we can SEE the love of flight in whose thrall Stack manages to exist. The problem is that neither Stack the actor nor the writer, George Zuckerman, are able to communicate that devotion.