Black Angel

Just as the opening credits are presented in Lured, here the opening credits are also gimmicky, focusing on the cover of the Black Angel novel and opening it to reveal photos of stars Dan Duryea, June Vincent, and Peter Lorre, as well as the supporting cast, along with credits. This would be director Roy William Neill’s final directing and co-producing duty, having directed the Universal Sherlock Holmes series with Basil Rathbone and Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man. He would die shortly after directing this movie from a heart attack. And another reason the novel was stressed is the fact that it was written by Cornell Woolrich, perhaps one of the finest noir/mystery writers (some of his work includes Rear Window, The Phantom Lady, and Val Lewton’s The Leopard Man).

Martin Blair (Dan Duryea) leans against a Los Angeles building, looking up at a brick hotel building, The Wilshire House, as the camera zooms into the room of Mavis Marlowe (Constance Dowling) and her lush apartment. She roots through a clothes drawer and produces a small silver pistol and puts it on the dressing table. The housekeeper delivers a package containing a broach. She throws it on a table in disgust and yells at the housekeeper. Mavis calls the front desk, “If Mr. Blair comes here tonight, I do not wish to see him, now or ever!” When Blair walks past the hotel lobby, a member of the hotel staff tells him Mrs. Marlowe does not wish to see him. “She’ll see me, she’s my wife,” Blair announces, but the doorman tells Blair that’s not what she just told him. After almost breaking into fisticuffs, the doorman shows Mr. Blair out. As Blair goes outside, he passes Mr. Marko (Peter Lorre), who tells the same person that Mrs. Marlowe is “waiting for me.” Blair continues walking down the street and winds up in a bar. Martin is playing a wild piano while the bartender calls his friend, Joe (Wallace Ford), to get him to his hotel before he does any real damage. Joe escorts him back home. Joe mentions that if it’s the Marlowe woman again, to forget her.

A man enters Mavis’s unlocked hotel room, where music is playing loudly. He walks further into the room, puts his hat down, and lights a cigarette. Instead of using the lighter in his pocket, he grabs one of Mavis’s matchbooks. As he lights his cigarette, he notices a phone number on the matchbook cover: Crestview 2111. He knocks on the bedroom door and opens it, discovering Mavis’s body slumped near her bed. The man’s expression changes to concern. Bending down, he sees a scarf around her neck and the brooch she received as a gift lying on the floor. He also spots her shiny little gun on the bed. Step by step, he steps outside the bedroom to make a call, but he hears some noises and returns to the bedroom to find the brooch missing and the hotel door slowly opening; however, when he investigates, no one is there. As he exits the hotel room, the housekeeper returns from the movie theater, and he hurriedly runs down the stairs, but he is recognized.

The police are immediately at Constance Bennett’s door, asking about her husband’s location. The lead investigator, Captain Flood (Broderick Crawford), accuses her husband of being involved in Marlowe’s murder. And he insinuates that he had been to her hotel room before. The man who walks in the door is Kirk Bennett, the man formerly in Mavis’ room and the accused husband. “I didn’t kill her,” Martin declares as they find the gun in his coat pocket. He is about to be detained at headquarters.

The time is five past four a.m., and Kirk is still being grilled for the crime. The police managed to extract from him that Mavis was blackmailing him. Kirk says he wasn’t going to pay her anymore, and Captain Flood holds up the gun they confiscated. Bennett tells the police he wanted to scare her. Flood slowly says, “We are holding you for the murder of Mavis Marlowe. The next visual is the front page of the Los Angeles Bulletin, which reads, “Bennett Murder Trial Begins.” Director Neill condenses the trial into cleverly conceived visual montages of pivotal scenes and newspaper headlines that parlay the story. The last headline says the jury is out. While detained, Catherine Bennett speaks to her husband, saying, ‘If only I could do something.” Her husband says she has been wonderful. She says she’ll always stand by you. The following words disrupt their conversation, The jury is coming back!” As the movie audience suspects all along, Bennett is found guilty.

Constance Bennett goes through many hoops to find Martin Blair, but she ultimately tracks him down. Martin is drunk, fully clothed, on his bed. He acts belligerent and rude, but once Constance mentions that she is Kirk Bennett’s wife, he starts to come around. However, he insists she should stop feeling sorry for him, to which Constance replies, “You’re feeling pretty sorry for yourself.” Martin claims he was outside her apartment and saw Kirk go in, but he dared not enter himself, thanks to a persuasive doorman. Constance pleads that he’s the only one who can help her. “Why don’t you go to the police or ask your husband?” Martin suggests that before attempting to return to bed. He awakens when she tells him Mavis was playing his record, Heartbreak. Joe enters and informs Constance that Martin was right here when his wife was killed … “I told him about it.” Joe explains he locked Martin in his room so he couldn’t have murdered his wife. Constance feels bad for accusing Martin and offers some money through Joe, who says, “Not me, lady. He has pride, and I have a glass jaw.” Constance slides the money under the doorway.

When Martin is in better shape, he visits Constance to return the money. “I don’t need this. Thanks anyway. I do all right … they still buy my songs.” Reluctantly, she accepts the money back and invites him in. Martin smiles and tells her, “It took a lot of courage to come down there. I guess I was a little rough on you. If I could do anything …” She invites him to sit down. When Martin sees a photo of Constance’s husband, he blurts out, “This wasn’t the man I saw go in.” Constance then asks him about the brooch. Martin looks as if he is trying to think, and the next thing he knows, he goes with Constance to see her husband in prison. Asking about the brooch, Martin says he gave it to Mavis when they were married. He resent it by messenger on their anniversary in hopes she would remember. “She’d be alive today if she had not brushed me off,” Martin sadly says. Martin finishes by saying he’ll recognize that man and the brooch anywhere. But they have to act fast, as Kirk has just been moved to the death house.

While investigating a box of Kirk’s stuff with Martin, they come across the matchbook with the Crestwood phone number. They decide to phone the number and find out. The phone rings at Marko’s (Peter Lorre) place on the Sunset Strip. Blair and Bennett take a cab to Marko’s club, Rio’s, and sit at the bar. Martin pays off the bartender to say how often Marko changes the talent for the floor show. ‘He has auditions every Monday afternoon … for professionals,” the bartender replies. Martin decides to volunteer with her for the auditions. Martin plays piano while Constance sings. Marko is impressed and wants to see the musical couple, but the other talent auditioning is so noisy that Marko invites them up to his private office. While there, Martin sees a letter with the double M logo, obviously Mavis’. He deposits her letter in the safe. Two hundred a week … after that, who knows?” Marko offers the couple to perform at his club. Awaiting Constance’s arrival home, Martin faces down a bottle of liquor and tells Constance he has a bouquet for her. Martin sits at the piano and plays some music. Martin asks if she likes it. He wants her to read the words from the sheet music: “I wrote it for you from the heart.” “Beautiful words. Marty, thanks for everything you’ve done for me.” Then Martin continues talking about the missing broach, and if it’s found, Kirk will be free. It is woefully apparent that Constance is falling in love with Martin. They rehearse their nightclub act.

Constance and Martin are performing at the nightclub. After their set is finished, Constance is beckoned to Mr. Marko’s office, just after she declared how important it is to get inside the safe to retrieve that letter from Mavis. Alone with Marko, he opens the safe in front of her and presents a gift, a brooch, but not the one she is looking for. Marko brings out a rare bottle of champagne, one he was saving for a special occasion. Later, Marko sits at a table with Constance when a business colleague offers him a ticket to the Hollywood Bowl that night, which he accepts after a bit of persuasion from Constance. With Marko gone, Constance seizes the moment to go upstairs, with Martin providing a watch in case anyone also goes upstairs. Martin will break into "Moonlight Sonata."

Constance ventures upstairs alone and reads a letter blackmailing Marko, telling him to see Mavis Marlowe to confirm the accusation. Unbeknownst to anyone, Marko has reentered the club and surveys the situation, eying his open office door. Martin sees Marko and his crony going upstairs to his office, now playing “Moonlight Sonata “as a warning to Constance. As Marko enters, he sees Constance closing the double doors that cover his safe. Constance looks terrified. He looks into the now-unlocked safe and finds the letter missing. He smiles and asks Constance where they are. “The box and the letter, I want them,” Marko demands. “Unfortunately, I’m a very suspicious man. Why did you think I laid that trap and let you see the combination? Simple, isn’t it! Can I now have the box and letter?” Under a bit of duress from Lucky (Freddie Steele), she tells Marko where she attempted to hide the letter.

Martin suddenly appears and demands that Marko open the metal box, while Captain Flood soon enters the office too, Constance having telephoned him. Flood’s authority makes Marko open the metal box. Inside, Flood finds a photo of his daughter, and Marko rants about continuing to protect her from Marko’s sordid life. “Mavis was the only one who knew!” Markos declares. And the captain accuses him of shutting Mavis up, permanently. Flood says, “Satisfied, no broach.” It turns out that Flood is Marko’s alibi, and he is innocent of the murder. Constance breaks down, crying over wasted time.

Later, Martin returns to Constance’s house and gets her out of bed, despondent, “He’s gonna die!” Martin tells her she did all she could, “Don’t let him do this to you. You’ve got to go on.” Constance says she can’t go on. Martin says, “That’s what I fought once. Until you came along. I needed someone. I still do. We both need someone. We both need each other! I knew from the very beginning that you had everything I wanted,” Martin tries to kiss her, but Constance pulls back. ‘There can only be one man.” And with a simple look, she rejects Martin’s advances, saying she’s sorry.

With that rejection, Martin goes to the Clover Bar and orders whiskey, wandering from one bar to another, staggering drunk. Finally, he gets kicked out of a bar and walks the streets until he finds another one of his haunts, and recognizes a drinking buddy, Millie, wearing the missing broach she says Martin gave her. Martin pulls the pin off Millie and causes a fight to erupt as someone finally punches Martin out cold. He awakens violently and desperately wants to exit the ambulance he’s in, but he’s restrained. Martin awakens strapped to a bed in the hospital and has various visions of the broach and people from his past, including his wife, Mavis.

He pins the broach on her, tries to kiss her, is rejected, and he tightens the scarf around her neck, killing her. Martin awakens in a sweat, still restrained in bed, but now he has a look of self-realization on his face. When a doctor and an orderly enter the room, he pleads with them to call the police immediately. The doctor responds that they’ll talk in the morning, Blair confesses to the murder of Mavis Marlowe, and he pleads with them to contact the police. But the doctor allows Martin to telephone Captain Flood. The officer at the desk says Flood is away on a case, but when Martin Blair is mentioned, the doctor is told to lock the nutcase up and throw away the key. Then, in a clever move, Martin escapes from the hospital, returning to Constance’s house, hiding from the police. But she is not home. Martin once again tries to connect with Captain Flood, but he’s still away, so he leaves a number to call him back. Constance returns home, a glum expression on her face, carrying a newspaper which says Kirk Bennett will die today. She finds Martin asleep on the couch with the broach amid mess and debris, and Constance awakens him. At this very moment, Captain Flood enters the house. Martin confesses to Flood that he killed his wife. Flood immediately calls the government’s mansion in Sacramento to tell them the facts of the case. The camera zooms in on a piece of Martin’s sheet music, “Time Will Tell,” as the final credits enter.

On the surface, Black Angel is a fine film noir with another acceptable Dan Duryea performance that lies at the heart of noir. Martin Blair is a pathetic puppy dog to his wife, the blackmailing Mavis Marlowe. He will do anything to win her back. He is an alcoholic and ends up in the dumps because of Mavis. He is generally seen as a wasted, ruined man. But then he meets Constance and falls in love again, even though her husband is very much alive, fighting for his life from execution. He seems to only think of his own needs, not the other person. However, he comes to the aid of the woman at wit’s end and wants to help her, if only to get closer. Once rejected again, the now clean and sober weak-willed man returns to the bottle and discovers he murdered Mavis, that he is the root of Constable’s problem. Which also neatly works out as Constance can return to Kirk once he is cleared and Martin is out of the way.

The movie spends half its running time trying to make Marko the main villain. He’s also involved with Mavis in a blackmail scheme, and much of the film is spent with the audience believing he is the murderer of Mavis. He is only a red herring in a starring role, which, in a way, is suitable for Peter Lorre lovers. However, just as Boris Karloff was in Lured, his performance is excellent, distracting us from the main plot, where his role is virtually unnecessary to the main plot.

Add more than its fair share of musical numbers to pad the scenario; we see how the flimsy plot is subtly being padded. Add this to the Peter Lorre middle section, and we see a minimal plot stretched for maximum effect. And once Martin is alone in Constance’s home, allowing him to consume her booze, he quickly remembers what occurred to the missing broach and how he murdered Mavis Marlowe, neatly getting his romance subplot out of the way so Constance and Kirk can be together again. Things coincidentally happen to push the plot along. It’s all too pat and mechanical. Even though Black Angel boasts some fine performances and a few outstanding visual moments courtesy of director Roy William Neill and cinematographer Paul Ivano, the film is ultimately hampered by the Roy Chanslor screenplay, which impedes a fine story by Cornell Woolrich. It's a film adaptation with some good and bad parts, producing a fair/reasonable film noir.

MARTIN BLAIR (DAN DURYEA) AND MAVIS MARLOWE (CONSTANCE DOWLING)

MARKO (PETER LORRE) AND CAPTAIN FLOOD (BRODERICK CRAWFORD)