Fallen Angel (Otto Preminger, 1945)

Linda Darnell, Bruce Cabot, Dana Andrews, and Charles Bickford in Fallen Angel

Cast: Dana Andrews, Alice Faye, Linda Darnell, Charles Bickford, Anne Revere, Bruce Cabot, John Carradine, Percy Kilbride. Screenplay: Harry Kleiner, based on a novel by Marty Holland. Cinematography: Joseph LaShelle. Art direction: Leland Fuller, Lyle R. Wheeler. Film editing: Harry Reynolds. Music: David Raksin. 

Stuck with the inexpressive Alice Faye as his leading lady, Otto Preminger does wonders with the stranger-comes-to-town noir Fallen Angel. He plays it with only the slightest hint of a tongue in his cheek, taking its otherwise improbable turns of the plot with a straight face. It helps that he has a wicked counterpoint to Faye's blankness: Linda Darnell, as Stella, a waitress in a diner called -- what else? -- Pop's. It helps, too, that the stranger who comes to town is played by Dana Andrews with just enough charm and just enough sleaze to keep you guessing about what his character, Eric Stanton, will do next as the plot unfolds. Stanton arrives in a small coastal California town with not much more than a nickel for a cup of coffee at Pop's, and begins to plot how to con his way into some money. It just so happens that he hits town at the same time as another con man, Professor Madley (John Carradine), a spiritualist-seer. The Professor wants to put on one of his shows but has run into interference from the influential Clara Mills (Anne Revere), the spinster daughter of the late mayor of the town. Stanton wagers that he can win over Clara, which he does by wooing her pretty younger sister, June (Faye). (We have to take it on faith that he succeeds with June because Faye's expression is much the same after he wins her as it was before.) The upshot is that the Professor's show goes on, and Stanton makes enough from the deal to leave town. But he doesn't quite yet, because meanwhile he has hit it off for real with Stella. (Andrews and Darnell have genuine chemistry, which makes the lack of it in his scenes with Faye even more apparent.) And there's also the temptation presented by the fact that June has money and Stella doesn't, so he thinks up a scheme to got his hands on it and then leave town with Stella. No, it doesn't go as planned. In addition to Darnell and Andrews, there's a good performance from Charles Bickford as a retired cop who hangs out at Pop's and takes a key role in the plot when Stanton's scheme doesn't quite work out. Preminger gets fine support from cinematographer Joseph LaShelle, who had just won an Oscar for his work on Preminger's Laura (1944), which had also starred Andrews. Fallen Angel is no Laura, for sure, but it's better than it probably has any right to be.