The Tarnished Angels

Unexpected greatness
"Tarnished Angels" must have been a huge surprise to its 1957 audience, who were used to Douglas Sirk's lavish melodramas in brilliant Technicolor, especially since it followed the '56 "Written on the Wind" with the same three stars. Based on Faulkner's "Pylon", it is the desperate story of a WWI ace pilot, now barnstorming across the country, trying to scratch out a living for himself and his wife and young son, and the journalist who wants to write a story about them. It has a Depression Era feeling throughout, and also goes back to Sirk's European roots, and has much more in common with Fellini's "La Strada" than with Sirk's better known Hollywood work, and some believe "Tarnished Angels" to be one of his finest films.

Rock Hudson as Burke, the journalist who is looking for a story and falls for the pilot's wife, gives his best dramatic performance, in what would be his last of many films for Sirk (Hudson was Sirk's favorite star). Robert Stack is superb as Roger, the...

The Forgotten Sirk Film...Still Watchable for His Familiar Touch
This is the forgotten Douglas Sirk film from his golden period in the 1950's when he made such classic Baroque-style women's pictures as "Magnificent Obsession", "All That Heaven Allows", "Written on the Wind" and "Imitation of Life". The black-and-white 1958 film doesn't have the saturated color palette of Sirk's frequent cinematographer, Russell Metty (who did lens those other films), nor does the story, based on William Faulkner's novel "Pylon", have as strong an orientation toward a female protagonist as the others. Yet, the film has many of the filmmaker's trademark melodramatic flourishes and some superb shot compositions, this time photographed by Irving Glassberg. The result is quite worthwhile and sadly not available yet on DVD.

Set in 1932 New Orleans (though you can hardly tell from the anachronistic 1950's-era wardrobe and sets), the plot focuses on Roger Shumann, a former WWI flying ace who has been relegated to racing around pylons in air shows for prize...

Great performances; grim story: a Faulkner favorite
It is said that William Faulkner liked this film the best of all the cinematic adaptations of his work. It is also said that its star, Rock Hudson, disliked this picture. I do not know if either is true. All I know that it is a grim story, perfectly directed by Douglas Sirk, and that it contains one of Rock Hudson's finest acting performances.

I realize that "Rock Hudson" and "fine actor" are not often used in the same breath, but he was better than many would care to acknowledge, and in this film he shines. By itself, his impassioned, inebriated soliloquy near the movie's end is worth the price of admission. In fact, it was written for the film as a substitute for a literary device used by Faulkner in PYLON that would have translated awkwardly to the screen.

The rest of the cast is also impressive: Sirk has reunited Hudson with Dorothy Malone and Robert Stack, fresh from their Oscar caliber (award and nomination respectively) turns in WRITTEN ON THE WIND. While the lush soap...

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