Fallen Angel. 1945. USA. Directed by Otto Preminger. Screenplay by Harry Kleiner, from the novel by Marty Holland. With Alice Faye, Dana Andrews, Linda Darnell, Charles Bickford. 35mm. 98 min.
Otto Preminger’s classic film noir is structured as a face-off between Fox’s two most significant female stars: blonde, cheerful Alice Faye and dark, resentful Linda Darnell, who here firmly establishes her postwar persona as an embittered, working-class woman who uses her beauty as a bargaining chip in the pursuit of a better life. Caught between them is drifter Dana Andrews, who arrives in a small town on the California coast with a dollar in his pocket and hatches a plan to marry Faye for her money and run off with Darnell’s hash-house Delilah. Preminger’s fluid, balanced mise-en-scène uproots the traditional moral pieties by suggesting a future with Faye is its own kind of trap.