150 Word Review: 'Black Angel' (1946)
Time will tell
There’s not enough singing in film noir. But director Roy William Neill’s strangely intoxicating crime drama Black Angel corrects that by introducing us to Martin and Catherine, a pair of nightclub singers with a secret.
Martin’s a raging alcoholic whose wife was strangled by Catherine’s husband... or was she? They team up and sneak into L.A.’s seedy underworld, convinced that a gangster is actually the murderer. That gangster is played by pint-sized Peter Lorre, who purrs with menace.
Dan Duryea is perfectly pathetic as a boozehound who sobers up for love. June Vincent is alluring and determined, as a dame willing to do anything to save her poor husband from the electric chair. Luckily, they make beautiful music together. That’s the only luck they have. Neill and screenwriter Roy Chanslor have little sympathy for these sadsacks. The final moments of Black Angel are like a broken fever, sweaty and clear-eyed.
Morre Lorre: ‘The Face Behind the Mask’ (1941)
