Chicago Reader
Film Search
This intense Freudian melodrama by Otto Preminger (1953) is one of the forgotten masterworks of film noir. Jean Simmons, beautifully blank, plays the ultimate femme fatale, a rich girl who seduces her beefcake chauffeur (Robert Mitchum) when daddy (Herbert Marshall) resists her advances. The film is a disturbingly cool, rational investigation of the terrors of sexuality, much as Preminger's later masterpiece Bunny Lake Is Missing is a detached appraisal of childhood horrors. The sets, characters, and actions are extremely stylized, yet Preminger's moving camera gives them a frightening unity and fluidity, tracing a straight, clean line to a cliff top for one of the most audacious endings in film history. With Mona Freeman, Leon Ames, and Barbara O'Neill. 91 min.

Sorry there are no showtimes for Angel Face on Sunday, November 8.

Reviews/comments (0)

Add a review


Roll over stars and click to rate.


©2009 Creative Loafing Media
All Rights Reserved.