seymourblack-1 Adultery and blackmail are possible motives for murder in this low-budget mystery thriller based on Cornell Woolrich's novel "The Black Angel". A convoluted plot, flawed characters and an unexpected twist all add to the enjoyment of watching this movie and a race against time to catch the killer becomes increasingly tense as the execution date for an innocent man moves ever closer.Martin Blair (Dan Duryea) attempts to see his estranged wife on the night of their wedding anniversary but, on Mavis Marlowe's (Constance Dowling) instructions, is prevented from entering her apartment building. After sending her a heart-shaped brooch, he sees another man being allowed into the building to see Mavis and decides to drown his sorrows by getting drunk.Next day, a man who was seen leaving Mavis' apartment shortly before her body was found, is arrested for her murder. Kirk Bennett (John Phillips) admits that he was one of her ex-lovers and was being blackmailed by her. He's subsequently tried and found guilty of the crime and sentenced to death. His loyal wife Catherine (June Vincent), is convinced that Kirk is incapable of murder and so sets out to prove his innocence. Her investigation leads her to Martin who she finds suffering the effects of a severe hangover and accuses him of killing his ex. When it transpires that he has a cast-iron alibi, she asks for his help to prove Kirk's innocence and her agrees to help her.Martin, who's an accomplished pianist and composer, is surprised to discover that the man he saw being given access to Mavis' apartment was a nightclub owner called Marko (Peter Lorre) and so he and ex-nightclub singer Catherine decide to audition, as a double act, for work at Marko's club (Rio's). The couple prove to be a great success at Rio's and become convinced that they're on the right track when it seems that Marko may have also been blackmailed by Mavis and could also be in possession of her heart-shaped brooch. When they eventually discover that Marko couldn't have been the murderer and Martin tells Catherine that he's fallen in love with her, she rejects him and he consoles himself by going on another drinking binge. The developments that then follow prove to be a great shock to everyone concerned.As the main character in this movie, Martin Blair is interesting because he's a very talented musician who's so driven by his emotions that when he's dumped by Mavis, his work suffers badly and he also resorts to extreme behaviour to try to ease his pain. His habitual drinking stops during the time that he's with Catherine because he enjoys her company and becomes focused on writing songs for her, just as he had done previously for Mavis (who was also a nightclub singer and recording artiste). When his affections then transfer to Catherine and she rejects him, he predictably relapses into his self-destructive behaviour again. Dan Duryea gives a very affecting performance as this sensitive and vulnerable character who instinctively turns to alcohol as a coping mechanism."Black Angel" begins impressively with a shot of Martin stood in the street outside the building where Mavis lives and then sweeps up to her floor and continues in through the window of her apartment. This piece of visual panache together with the movie's musical sequences and good supporting performances (especially from Peter Lorre) all contribute greatly to making this twisted whodunit both enjoyable and memorable.

secondtake Black Angel (1946)What a vigorous, fast, surprising movie. This is a straight up crime film in a noir style, and Dan Duryea holds it up in his indecisive, regular guy kind of way. Duryea always has trouble as the leading man because he often plays a tough guy with a soft heart, and is a little whiny or annoying by design. It's an uncomfortable role to play, not quite sympathetic as the protagonist, not quite evil as the antagonist. A better B-movie, the budget just had enough room for someone like Duryea, and a small part for both Peter Lorre, who is fantastic (as usual) playing a suspicious night club owner, and Broderick Crawford, who is an oddly subdued detective. The leading woman, June Vincent, is fine in her part as an everyday woman caught up in an effort to save her husband from the death chamber, though she was chosen more for her singing than her acting. She and Duryea sing and play the piano together, and torch song music is central to the feel of the movie. Duryea might not actually be playing the piano but he does such a good job of faking it, he might have pulled it off.But what makes the film special? First of all, it's fast. The first twenty minutes have enough turns and dramatic climaxes for many entire movies. And then there's the filming, the visuals, which are vigorous and kinetic. The wild zoom in from the street up a tall building and into the room near the beginning is crazy--like low budget Gregg Toland from "Citizen Kane." But this is either cinematographer Paul Ivano, who is an uncredited photographer for part of "Frankenstein," believe it or not, or more likely the special effects guy, David Horsley, who helped with a whole slew of classics, including "Bride of Frankenstein," oddly enough. The scene near the end where Duryea is hallucinating is terrific, with its distortions.Whatever the faults of the movie (possibly the weakness of the female lead, who becomes the central character) it has so much surprise and velocity it is terrific anyway.

MisterWhiplash I wish I couldn't recommend Black Angel, but as it stands it's a passable film-noir that happens to contain some moments of good suspense. This comes, frankly, after the first expectation has been passed aside (to put it this way, if you introduce the gun in act 1, as the director does here with Peter Lorre, you expect by act 5 it'll go off in a BIG way, which it does not here for sure) and we're left with something else that is even more expected. One does hope that things might turn out not so great, actually, to make it more dramatically horrific and worthy of the dark tones of the style and definite noirish characteristics of the lighting. While the actors, mostly Dan Duryea and for what he's worth in an underused role for Peter Lorre, do what they can, it kind of reverts back to what was in the Hayes code at the time, which was that justice must be served and the real criminals couldn't get away with the crime and yada yada.The source material from Cornell Woolrich supplied some good dialog and a mid-section involving the piano player and his singer (quite a team they make for all of five minutes), but I wonder if the material was much the same in the story as here. The ideas of guilt and repression come out differently here, which is the one plus, in that Duryea only comes off like a total sneaky little s*** in one scene (the one right before he goes to drink his head off a second time around), and makes the character almost sympathetic amid drunken hazes and horrible moments of violence. There's a lot going for Black Angel, but the director only realizes some of the possibilities and leaves the rest as B-movie fodder- not even a shot imitating that of Vidor's The Crowd or some interesting "hazy" camera-work can make this truly notable... just, not bad.

Michael O'Keefe One sided love affair, blackmail and murder. Director Roy William Neil serves up mild tempered Film-Nior that provides an unexpected twist. An experienced cast makes the movie work. A beautiful blackmailer(Constance Dowling) is killed and the wife(June Vincent)of the man(John Phillips) convicted of the murder sets out to prove his innocence with the aid of the victim's ex-husband(Dan Duryea). Broderick Crawford plays Captain Flood, who is really not totally concerned either way in innocence or guilt, because his squad is three months behind solving cases.Also in the cast are: Wallace Ford, Marion Martin, Ben Bard and an under used Peter Lorre.