THE TARNISHED ANGELS (United States, 1957, Douglas Sirk)

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Evoking Depression-era Louisiana with glorious black-and-white CinemaScope photography, Douglas Sirk’s spellbinding chronicle of personal obsession, romantic longing, and irreconcilable desires remains one of the most extraordinary films to emerge from 1950s Hollywood.

Set in the 1930s during Mardi Gras in New Orleans, THE TARNISHED ANGELS chronicles three days in the lives of a trio of flying-circus performers, headlined by former World War I fighter-pilot hero Roger Shumann (Robert Stack) and his beautiful wife, LaVerne (Dorothy Malone). Romantic complications arise when newspaper reporter Burke Devlin (Rock Hudson) falls in love with LaVerne while covering their daredevil aerial show. THE TARNISHED ANGELS is based on a novel by William Faulkner (PYLON) and adapted for the screen by George Zuckerman. Notably, the film features Troy Donahue in one of his earlier roles.

Sirk — who was known for directing such Hollywood melodramas as MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION, ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS, WRITTEN ON THE WIND, and IMITATION OF LIFE — was the definition of an “auteur” and once remarked.

The director has to control everything. The movement of the camera is important because this is his style. Otherwise he just becomes a director of the people. With film, a director should be in on everything. Never give up and don’t let them tell you they are the specialist. You don’t want any special kind of work, you want your kind of work. You see, a film is a visual thing. It’s not being told by words alone. Words are important, but almost to a minor degree. It’s the lighting, the angling, and it’s the cutting, too. I’ve always been from the first to the last minute, in the cutting room telling the cutter I want it this way and that way, because once in a while you take a whole sequence out of here and put it there and that makes a lot of difference. Believe me, maybe it will make the film.

Warren Sonbert’s NOBLESSE OBLIGE (1981) pays direct homage to Sirk’s film, in both its narrative structure and visual iconography. Sonbert’s film also contains themes and images of flying and falling, of masked parades, and of the manner in which media reportage shapes public perceptions of personalities and events. In order to directly underscore his esteem for Sirk and his movies, Sonbert also includes in his own film shots of THE TARNISHED ANGELS on video monitors and of Sirk himself conversing in a café with filmmakers Nathaniel Dorsky and Jerome Hiler while attending a tribute at the San Francisco Film Festival.

DOUGLAS SIRK AND JEROME HILER IN WARREN SONBERT’S nOBLESSE OBLIGE (1981).

NATHANIEL DORSKY AND DOUGLAS SIRK IN WARREN SONBERT’S NOBLESSE OBLIGE (1981).

THE TARNISHED ANGELS
(US, 1957)

Director: Douglas Sirk

  • 91 minutes
  • 35mm
  • B&W
  • Sound
Distribution Format/s: DSL/Downloadable 1080p .mp4 file on server

Published By: Kino Lorber

Institutional Price: $500

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