2021-08-22 10:27
I borrowed Otto Preminger's Fallen Angel from the library after looking up Linda Darnell, who I quite liked in My Darling Clementine. One of the Fox film noirs, I had the vague feeling I'd seen it before, but now realize I've confused with some other noir. It's one of those noirs that is more on the romantic drama side than the crime side. Eventually a crime, a murder, does happen (over an hour into the 90 minute movie), but it does not take place in a milieu of crime. The perpetrator is withheld, leaving it sort of open that the protagonist did it, or maybe (as I suspected) his new wife (which would have been a great spin on the plot, better than the actual solution), but then it all gets resolved mostly offscreen right at the end. It's not all together successful, because the dramatic tension comes later and is mostly... slack.