Douglas Sirk Week: The Tarnished Angels

Howdy doo boys and girls and welcome to Day 4 of Douglas Sirk Week and this movie is derived from the master novelist himself William Faulkner (The Story of Temple Drake, Slave Ship, To Have and Have Not, The Big Sleep and As I Lay Dying) a story of a fallen World War I flying ace that has been so diminished to appearances at this run down stunt aerobatics carnival.   So let’s all go to the lobby, grab ourselves a treat and plunk in your chair.  This is The Tarnished Angels.

Go around!!!

You better change spoilers…

Screenwriter George Zuckerman (Border Incident, Under the Gun, Written on the Wind and The Brass Legend) takes on Faulkner’s novel with ace reporter Burke Devlin (Rock Hudson of Lover Come Back, Send Me No Flowers, Seconds, Blindfold and A Fine Pair) steps in for a boy being teased and returns him to his parents.  On the way to the boy’s house Devlin finds out that young Jack is the of World War I flying ace Roger Shumann (Robert Stack of Written on the Wind, House of Bamboo, Sail to Glory, Story of a Woman and Airplane!) is hosting an aerial show of sorts with a series of battered plane and little to no money from it.  His grease monkey Jiggs (Jack Carson of Mildred Pierce, Arsenic and Old Lace, A Star Is Born and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof) and just about every male with a heart beat looks in LaVerne (Dorothy Malone of The Big Sleep, Written on the Wind, Tip on a Dead Jockey, Warlock and The Last Sunset) Roger’s wife direction Burke tells Roger that he wants to write a story on the Flying Shumanns and as they are near destitute they all bunk it down at Devlin’s apartment for the time.

Better believe it, baby!

 

Devlin drinks and smokes like a man of the era with a hybrid of cynicism and optimism that manages to be give his all to push for a human interest story when he is reassigned to a senator’s re-election campaign.    Devlin tells his editor to go pound sand and pursues the human interest story that has meaning.

I have just a few observations of the movie if you don’t mind.  Stack’s character is a cold fish with gambling tendencies and doesn’t mind tormenting people mentally.  Dorothy Malone is a curvy blonde bombshell that could wrap men around her finger until doomsday.  

At least 4 members of Written on the Wind are starring in this film giving Sirk some familiar dedicated actors to draw on.  This film captures the despair of humanity from the adrenaline junkies to pursuit of a dream with the near prostitution of LaVerne for a plane.   The misery of dreams failing and the inability to reach them dragging further into the dirt creates such turmoil. 

Yer mom's red hot sonny boy.

Sirk captures the scope of desperation without giving into crude needs or crass comments.   The cinematography captured again by 35mm Spherical from aerial shots, rear projection, tight zooms and dolly tracked, this film has it all and keeps a nice steady pace of interest on the human element, the sorted parties and how each life conflicts with the other.  It is torrid tale of lost souls reaching out for just one chance to make things better.