The guy providing the audio commentary, Eddie Muller, is always fun to listen to and he points out the subtle ways in which this romantic/murder/drama has been polished to a sheen, despite its low budget, by director Otto Preminger.Unless you listen to the commentary you might conclude, as I did, that it's a rather dark and uninteresting story that, in the 1930s, might have made a decent B movie starring Warren William and some uninteresting babe who misleads him and finally brings it all to a violent end.Mitchum sleeps through his part of the manipulated dope. Jean Simmons has always given me a problem. She was great as Ophelia and again in Lean's "David Copperfield," but I never thought of her as striking or even especially interesting. Not in the context of the cinema anyway. That takes nothing away from her real character. I watched a movie being shot in Echo Park and got to know her a bit and she had an exuberant cheerfulness that was catching.Let me insert, before I forget, that the immortal Bess Flowers has about ten seconds of screen time as a secretary and the reliable Eddie Muller lauds her career, as he should.As for the rest -- well, nobody hears much about "Angel Face". There's no reason to. It's an unremarkable drama of a man caught up in the paraphilia of a rich and deranged young woman.

Apparently shot in 18 days to ensure Jean Simmons filmed her part while still under contract to producer Howard Hughes, this is a fine film noir with a particularly memorable ending.I wasn't sure I could believe Robert Mitchum, the king of world-weary sardonic-ism, falling so readily for the youthful charms of evil step-daughter Simmons, especially with a smart, pretty and loving girl of his own, but once I surrendered this point, it was easy, rather like Mitchum's ambulance-driver, to be persuaded to follow the plot here through to the bitter end.I actually considered both leads to be somewhat miscast in the film, Simmons effect dulled somewhat by a rather ugly helmet of a wig and the dialogue lacks the snap of a Hammett, Chandler or even a Spillane, but the narrative is intriguing and the ambivalent natures of both the main parts strangely compelling, plus, like I said there's a surprise, no make that shock ending, to finish things off with a knockout punch.Director Preminger mixes up some staple noir elements of a femme fatale, her stooge of a male admirer, sex, murder and mystery, employing big-close-ups, atmospheric lighting and crisply shot monochromatic sets, perhaps only faltering over a slightly dull, over-technical courtroom scene, and the miscasting already mentioned. Nevertheless, the story crackles along and I doubt many will anticipate the climax, which certainly caught me off-guard and yet in retrospect, delivers a finish true to the genre's often nihilistic traits.Mitchum of course is naturally very good as the ensnared Frank, the piano-playing Simmons, dressed throughout in black and white outfits, perhaps stressing the duality of her nature, a little less so.

I must dissent a bit here. While I don't think this is a bad film, to me there's just something not quite right about it.First off, about the cast. Robert Mitchum is very good here as the target of Jean Simmons' affections. Although, maybe this is what is bothering me. In the role, Mitchum's character is a pretty street-smart guy. Would he really fall for Simmons' scheming? Somehow I don't think so.Jean Simmons is interesting here. She's nuts, obsessing about killing her stepmother, but doesn't overplay the part...as is often done in this type of plot. In fact, it takes you awhile to see where she is going.The parents get a bum steer here in terms of the story. Despite being the target of Jean Simmon's hate, the mother (Diane Tremayne) gets little screen time. Likewise, the venerable Herbert Marshall (as father) gets little screen time, and has one good scene (coincidentally, I watched Marshall's appearance on "What's My Line?" after viewing this film (he appeared in 1954, and in one of his answers he alluded to having reached that point in life where he had become a character actor, rather than the star).Leon Ames, pretty much always a character actor, continues as that here as the defense attorney, although he is outdone by Jim Backus playing the prosecutor. The courtroom scenes here have been given high marks, and I tend to agree. Morgan Farley has an interesting little part as a juror.As to the story, it's a good one, although in spots -- particularly early on -- it hardly has the sophistication of Preminger's "Laura", "Stalag 17", or even "The River Of No Return". Worth watching, but it won't find its way onto my DVD shelf.

Directed by Otto Preminger, 1952's Angel Face is a nicely-paced Crime/Thriller about passion gone haywire.With the innocent face of an angel, and the deceptive heart of a devil, the young and alluring Diane Treymayne uses her many seductive charms to set up Frank Jessup, the handsome ambulance driver, as the fall guy when she secretly plots out the fool-proof murder of her wealthy stepmother in order to collect on the inheritance.In Angel Face it's all flimsy alibis, heartless betrayals, and thrilling courtroom drama, compounded by the fire of a femme fatale who's too dangerous to trust, but too tantalizing to resist.Set in and around Beverly Hills, Angel Face stars one of my fave movie tough-guys from the 1950s, Robert Mitchum.