Let's continue the noir film thread that started last week by looking at another movie directed by Otto Preminger and with costumes by Bonnie Cashin, "Fallen Angel".
Released in 1945, a year later than "Laura", the film was taken from Marty Holland's eponymous novel.
The film follows the vicissitudes of Eric Stanton (Dana Andrews), a press agent down on his luck and an exceptional con man. Stanton arrives in Walton, with no money in his pockets and stops for a cup of coffee at Pop's Eats, where owner Pop (Percy Kilbride) and ex-New York cop Mark Judd (Bickford) are talking about waitress Stella (Linda Darnell) who seems to have disappeared for days. As they chat about her, Stella suddenly arrives and Stanton is immediately attracted to her.
Stanton finds himself a sort of job, advertising the performance of travelling fortune-teller and charlatan Professor Madley (John Carradine) and even managing to convince two local spinster sisters who are very influential in the Walton community - Clara (Anne Revere) and June Mills (Alice Faye) - to go to the show.
As the days pass Stanton falls in love with Stella, but she is not impressed and tells him she wants to marry a man who will buy her a house. Stanton agrees and then plans to marry June, divorce her shortly afterwards, get her money and leave with Clara.
Totally obsessed with Clara, Stanton runs to her even on his wedding night, and discovers she is going out with another man. He returns to his wife, but he is woken up by very upsetting news – Clara has been murdered.
Judd immediately suspects Stanton and he runs away to San Francisco where he launches a personal investigation that leads to surprising results.
The acting is good and Stella and Stanton can be considered as two great noir characters: dark-haired Linda Darnell is perfect in her role of sarcastic and opportunist femme fatale, and so is Dana Andrews who, from romantic detective in "Laura", turns into a clever drifter in this film. Faye's character instead is less convincing and too superficial.
Joseph La Shelle's atmospheric, black-and-white cinematography gives the film a perfect pulp atmosphere: "Laura" was a well-lit film compared to this one, in which the interplay between shadows and lights creates intriguing scenes, such as the one in which Stella returns to Pop's Eats.
She is tired, sad and lonely having been abandoned by just another man and the scene is shot from the point of view of the three men in the bar - Stanton, Pop and Judd - who turn to look at her intently, following every gesture she makes, from the moment she takes off one of her shoes to massage her foot.
Judd's shoes are ominously framed in the same shot here in a very clever way to turn this moment into a sexually charged scene and as a hint to the viewers to keep this character in mind.
Bonnie Cashin provide costumes also for this film, but her designs for "Fallen Angel" are less modern than the ones in "Laura".
For this film Cashin seemed to go back to classic '40s styles, while she concentrated on using costumes to establish a difference, almost a dichotomy, between the two female protagonists - gentle and shy June, who has lived in the shadow of her sister for all her life, and opportunist and sensual Stella, a free spirit.
June is always dressed in sensible, elegant and functional separates such as a blouse and a skirt or a skirt suit, possibly accessorised with a hat.
Stella has a soft spot for cotton dresses in bold prints, but also for more extravagant evening gowns, like the one she wears on the night she gets killed by an unknown assailant.
The sensual black gown she wears the last time we see her alive is decorated with rhinestone tassels that sparkle as she moves, making her look extremely sensual.
There are also other differences between June and Stella that Cashin symbolically represented via her designs: the noir atmosphere of the film is indeed embodied also by their looks with June's wardrobe being in light and soft colours, while Stella's featuring a few black dresses that she usually wears to go out with her suitors.
The interplay with lights and shadows is also mirrored by the lace hat Stella wears when she returns to Pop's, the same one that also appears in a scene of another film with Cashin's costumes, "The Bullfighters".
Besides, while June's clothes are mainly static and accessorised with hats, Stella's often feature dynamic elements such as ruffles or tassels and she usually favours fresh flowers in her hair rather than hats.
Yet June is actually a fashion fan and we unexpectedly discover this detail on what should be her last night out with Stanton. She confesses him she likes collecting ads out of magazines and dreams of being a girl in them, possibly in a Schiaparelli gown.
At the very end of the film she also turns up to pick Stanton from Pop's Eats in her car, wearing a timeless trench coat by Cashin, proving she may not be a femme fatale like Stella, but she's on her way to become a modern and dynamic woman.
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