Customer Reviews

Tarnished Angels [VHS]

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"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.

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.

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!

This has to be one of Robert Stacks all time great performances. One that should in my opinion have earned him another Oscar monination for best actor. What a shame Hollywood chose to ignore for the most part this fantastically talented man. Rock Hudson and Jack Carson also gave brilliant performances as did Dorothy Malone. A film worthy of becoming a great Douglas Sirk classic

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.

Rock Hudson stars as a hard drinking newspaper man who wants to do a story on stunt flyers at a show, but finds himself drawn into the world of one flyer in particular. The flyer is played by Robert Stack, a war hero with ice in his veins, whose wife does parachute stunts, and whose son worships him. Dorothy Malone is his wife, while Jack Carson is his mechanic who is in love with Malone. Before long, even Hudson finds himself in love with Malone as well, and he is also fascinated by the couple's compelling story. With everyone in love with Malone, things of course get complicated. This is another heated film from director Douglas Sirk, featuring several of his actors from his overheated classic "Written on the Wind". Everyone gives charged performances as would be expected, although I found Hudson's character a little difficult to understand. Hudson is fine, but I think the character was not written well enough, although he has a number of grandstanding speeches. Carson is quite good in his smaller role. The film certainly isn't boring, since Sirk knows how to keep your attention with music, photography, and drama. But like so many of Sirk's other films, subtle it isn't. If you're in the right mood, you will enjoy it.

Dorothy Malone could really look hot in her day. Man, sometimes he outdid Marilyn Monroe for sex appeal......sometimes. One instance might be here in this movie.

This film also 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 Rock 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.

****possible spoilers**** 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.

Thsi film could be a companion piece to " Written on the Wind" Both have Hudson and Stack in the leads.

This film however is a little darker in composition. It also has the advantages of Jack Carson.( a very versatile actor) .

Look quickly for a very young Troy Donohue.

CP