Product Details

• Actors: Rock Hudson, Robert Stack, Dorothy Malone, Jack Carson, Robert Middleton
• Directors: Douglas Sirk
• Writers: George Zuckerman, William Faulkner
• Producers: Albert Zugsmith
• Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, HiFi Sound, NTSC
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Universal Studios
• VHS Release Date: May 14, 1996
• Run Time: 91 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6304021690
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #202,406 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Rock Hudson has never been better than as the hard-headed newsman with a romantic soft spot for a team of gypsy fliers--especially the sexy parachute-jumping Dorothy Malone--in Douglas Sirk's adaptation of William Faulkner's Pylon. It's the Depression, and the volatile little family--disillusioned World War I ace Robert Stack; his doting wife Malone; his sad, lovesick mechanic Jack Carson; and Stack's hero-worshipping son--has landed in New Orleans for a Mardi Gras air show. Stack's mania for flying ("I need to fly, just like an alcoholic needs his drink!") keeps him at arm's length from his loving family, and he even sacrifices his wife's virtue for a shot at piloting his archrival's spare plane, but his brittle emotional armor cracks in a stunning moment of redemption. Douglas Sirk trades his vivid Technicolor palette for shadowy black-and-white CinemaScope (the gorgeous widescreen compositions are tragically lost on pan-and-scan video) to create a dark, desperate vision of the Depression, where deadened souls wait for the next spectacular crash as fliers recklessly race around pylons. Sirk heightens the alienation with the most stylized shooting of his career: cameras peer through transom windows, shadows slash through scenes, and grotesque Mardi Gras costumes wander through almost every scene. This production is considered by many, including Faulkner himself, to be the best adaptation of the author's work, and it remains Sirk's most bleakly beautiful film. --Sean Axmaker

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Unexpected greatness, July 26, 2005

By 

Alejandra Vernon "artist & illustrator" (Long Beach, California) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Tarnished Angels [VHS] (VHS Tape)

"Tarnished Angels" must have been a huge surprise to its 1957 audience, who were used to Douglas Sirk's lavish melodramas in brilliant Technicolor, especially since it followed the '56 "Written on the Wind" with the same three stars. Based on Faulkner's "Pylon", it is the desperate story of a WWI ace pilot, now barnstorming across the country, trying to scratch out a living for himself and his wife and young son, and the journalist who wants to write a story about them. It has a Depression Era feeling throughout, and also goes back to Sirk's European roots, and has much more in common with Fellini's "La Strada" than with Sirk's better known Hollywood work, and some believe "Tarnished Angels" to be one of his finest films.

Rock Hudson as Burke, the journalist who is looking for a story and falls for the pilot's wife, gives his best dramatic performance, in what would be his last of many films for Sirk (Hudson was Sirk's favorite star). Robert Stack is superb as Roger, the tormented pilot, whose only true love is his airplane, and Dorothy Malone is fabulous as LaVerne, Roger's devoted wife. She has a sensuality that makes the story line of having numerous men in lust or love with her understandable, and among these men is Jiggs, the mechanical whiz who works on Roger's airplanes, and is well played by Jack Carson.

Others in the cast include Christopher Olsen, effective as young Jack, Robert Middleton as the unsavory Matt Ord, William Schallert as Ted, and briefly in some early scenes as a pilot, one can see Troy Donahue, who was to become a bobbysoxer heartthrob a year later with "A Summer Place". The b&w cinematography by Irving Glassberg is excellent, and the Frank Skinner score adds to the atmosphere. This is an unusual '50s film, and a must for Hudson fans. Total running time is 91 minutes.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Finally!, July 14, 2008

By 

Shawn (Vancouver, BC) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Tarnished Angels (DVD)

Finally! Tarnished Angels on DVD! It's from Brazil, with both a Portugese box cover and DVD menu, but the film is presented in a gorgeous black and white widescreen Cinemascope transfer. Excellent quality, not a bootleg. My only question is why hasn't Universal released this in North America??? ...and what about Magnificient Obsession?

Original review was July 2008, Update May 23, 2011:
Well this film is now readily available in North America via a DVD-R series from TCM of Universal owned pictures. I have not seen this new release, but hopefully they have a good print as the Brazilian DVD was very good and Universal has a good reputation of putting out fairly good quality restorations. This has been the case with both Magnificient Obsession through Criterion and also Sirk`s two pictures starring Barbara Stanwyck on a boxset devoted to her lesser known pictures. While it is good to have Tarnished Angels finally available it is too bad that they don`t feel the market is strong enough to put out a more lavish release of this film, or at least another Rock Hudson boxset with this and his other action pictures with Sirk.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great performances; grim story: a Faulkner favorite, April 29, 2003

By 

Richard E. "Nick" Noble (Southborough, MA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tarnished Angels [VHS] (VHS Tape)

It is said that William Faulkner liked this film the best of all the cinematic adaptations of his work. It is also said that its star, Rock Hudson, disliked this picture. I do not know if either is true. All I know that it is a grim story, perfectly directed by Douglas Sirk, and that it contains one of Rock Hudson's finest acting performances.

I realize that "Rock Hudson" and "fine actor" are not often used in the same breath, but he was better than many would care to acknowledge, and in this film he shines. By itself, his impassioned, inebriated soliloquy near the movie's end is worth the price of admission. In fact, it was written for the film as a substitute for a literary device used by Faulkner in PYLON that would have translated awkwardly to the screen.

The rest of the cast is also impressive: Sirk has reunited Hudson with Dorothy Malone and Robert Stack, fresh from their Oscar caliber (award and nomination respectively) turns in WRITTEN ON THE WIND. While the lush soap opera of the earlier film has received more critical kudos for its shameless style, THE TARNISHED ANGELS tells a similar story in an altogether different way.

The film is not always appealing, but there is a compulsive magnetism to its pessimistic outlook that holds the viewer.

Perhaps THE TARNISHED ANGELS is simply a dramatic curiosity or an interesting period piece (parts of it can certainly seem dated), but it features some of Hudson's best work (despite what he might have felt about it) and it is far more personal and provocative than some of Sirk's other efforts.

Check it out!