The Tarnished Angels (1958) Review

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(More customer reviews)"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 tormented pilot, whose only true love is his airplane, and Dorothy Malone is fabulous as LaVerne, Roger's devoted wife. She has a sensuality that makes the story line of having numerous men in lust or love with her understandable, and among these men is Jiggs, the mechanical whiz who works on Roger's airplanes, and is well played by Jack Carson.
Others in the cast include Christopher Olsen, effective as young Jack, Robert Middleton as the unsavory Matt Ord, William Schallert as Ted, and briefly in some early scenes as a pilot, one can see Troy Donahue, who was to become a bobbysoxer heartthrob a year later with "A Summer Place". The b&w cinematography by Irving Glassberg is excellent, and the Frank Skinner score adds to the atmosphere. This is an unusual '50s film, and a must for Hudson fans. Total running time is 91 minutes.


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WRITTEN on the WIND (NTSC All Region Import) Rock Hudson, Lauren Bacall, Robert Stack, and Dorothy Malone, Douglas Sirk (1956) Review

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(More customer reviews)This is a rare movie and would be mediocre with the wooden performances of Rock Hudson and Lauren Bacall. However, the supporting cast gives the best performances of this movie. Robert Stack and Dorothy Malone blow this movie away with their above averages performances. The plot of the movie revolves around a New York secretary, Bacall, who marries a rich alcoholic insecure son, Robert Stack, of a Texas millionaire. Also included, there is a family friend, Rock Hudson, in love with Bacall and a nyphomanic sister of Stack's, Dorothy Malone, who is in love with Hudson. This is clearly Dorothy Malone's movie, which she won a best supporting actress Oscar award and rightfully so. Malone proves she can act and is more than a mother figure as Constance Mackenzie in Peyton Place. Enjoy this above average movie.

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The Last Voyage (1960) Review

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(More customer reviews)Disaster movies from this era are, in general, fairly forgettable, but "The Last Voyage" rises above the norm in several ways. The stars of this film are well cast with Robert Stack in fine form as the heroic husband out to save his wife, George Sanders excelling as Captain Robert Adams, and Dorothy Malone doing a generally good (though occasionally over the top) job as the imperiled heroine. Stack and Malone had worked together before, and have an excellent onscreen chemistry. While football star turned actor Woody Strode does an excellent job as a selfless crewman, the downside to the casting was Tammy Marihugh who played the daughter of Stack and Malone, and who is one of the most shrill and annoying child actors in memory. I gave this film four stars, and a good part of the reason it didn't get five was due to that one piece of casting.
The real star of the film, of course, was the "S.S. Claridon" which sank due to a fire, boiler explosion, and aged bulkheads. Most movies from the 1960s have poor special effects, but "The Last Voyage" is different because there are no real special effects here. The actual star of the film turns out to be no other than the beautiful art deco French Line ship, the "Ile de France," a ship more famous than most people realize. The "Ile de France" was the first ocean liner completed after world war one, and served through many years of service on the Atlantic (including as a troop transport during world war two.) Her most famous accomplishment, though, was coming to the aid of the "Andrea Doria" which sank in 1956: "Ile de France" was key to the rescue operation, but was retired and this film was made just four years later.
The film was shot onboard the ship, which is why the sets look so realistic and why the sinking is so realistic (she was actually sunk for the film.) While the plot itself is a bit contrived (really, an acetylene delivery by rowboat?) the story is generally well done and the shots of the ship are magnificent, although the mechanics of the funnel collapse might be questioned by marine architects.
I recommend the film as an above average suspense drama, and especially for the beautiful shots of a magnificent liner in her final days.

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