Wikipedia

The Tarnished Angels

The Tarnished Angels is a 1957 black-and-white American CinemaScope drama film directed by Douglas Sirk and starring Rock Hudson, Robert Stack, Dorothy Malone, Jack Carson, and Robert Middleton.[5][6] The screenplay by George Zuckerman is based on the 1935 novel Pylon by William Faulkner.

The Tarnished Angels
Theatrical release poster
Directed byDouglas Sirk
Screenplay byGeorge Zuckerman
Based onthe novel Pylon
by William Faulkner
Produced byAlbert Zugsmith
StarringRock Hudson
Robert Stack
Dorothy Malone
Jack Carson
CinematographyIrving Glassberg
Edited byRussell F. Schoengarth
Music byFrank Skinner
Production
company
Distributed byUniversal-International
Release dates
  • November 21, 1957 (1957-11-21) (London)
  • December 25, 1957 (1957-12-25) (Charlotte, North Carolina)[1][2][3]
Running time
91 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Box office$1.5 million[4]

Plot

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Disillusioned World War I flying ace Roger Shumann (Robert Stack) spends his days during the Great Depression making appearances as a barnstorming pilot at rural airshows with his parachutist wife LaVerne (Dorothy Malone), worshipful son Jack (Chris Olsen), and mechanic Jiggs (Jack Carson) in tow.

New Orleans reporter Burke Devlin (Rock Hudson) is intrigued by the gypsy-like lifestyle of the former war hero, but is dismayed by his cavalier treatment of his family and soon finds himself attracted to the neglected LaVerne. Meanwhile, Roger barters with aging business magnate Matt Ord (Robert Middleton) for a plane in exchange for a few hours with his wife. Tragedy ensues when Jiggs' anger about his employer's refusal to face family responsibilities causes him to make a rash and fatal decision. He manages, with some difficulty, to get Shumann's aircraft to start, but the plane crashes and Shumann is killed. After rejecting and then reconciling with Devlin, LaVerne returns to Iowa with Jack.

Cast

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Jack Carson and Dorothy Malone

Production

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Sirk had long been an admirer of Faulkner's novel, having written an (unfilmed) script adaptation at UFA in the 1930s.[7] He later said "Pylon impressed me with its characters, and I was always very interested in flying."[8]

Sirk had the chance to make the film at Universal-International following the success of Written on the Wind. The movie used many key contributors to Wind including actors Rock Hudson, Robert Stack and Dorothy Malone, writer George Zuckerman and producer Albert Zugsmith.[9] Sirk said Zuckerman helped persuade Zugsmith to make the movie, with the producer being attracted to the Dorothy Malone part.[10] Sirk later called Zugsmith "the only producer I could persuade to reject the happy end" of the film, i.e. to not finish with the characters of Hudson and Malone together but rather "a cool parting of the ways".[11]

Sirk said "the story had to be completely un-Faulknerized" but "the characters in the film are still pretty close to Faulkner's."[12]

Sirk said he had to shoot the film in black and white because Universal "didn't trust the story".[13]

William Faulkner considered this film to be the best screen adaptation of his work.[14]

Sirk did not feel Pylon was a suitable title. Zugsmith wanted to call the movie Sex in the Air. A Unviersal salesman came up with The Tarnished Angels.[15]

Release

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The Tarnished Angels premiered in London in November 1957 and got its first American booking on Christmas Day 1957 in Charlotte, North Carolina, before going into general release.[16][17]

Reception

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Critical

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In his review in The New York Times, Bosley Crowther said the film "was badly, cheaply written by George Zuckerman and is abominably played by a hand-picked cast. The sentiments are inflated — blown out of all proportions to the values involved. And the acting, under Douglas Sirk's direction, is elaborate and absurd."[18]

Variety called the film "a stumbling entry. Characters are mostly colorless, given static reading in drawn-out situations, and story line is lacking in punch."[19]

Box office

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The film was a minor box office success with rentals in 1958 of $1.5 million. This was significantly less than Written on the Wind.[4] However Sirk claimed "the picture was rather successful."[20]

Later reviews

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More recent reviews, penned after a resurgence of interest and respect for Sirk's directing, are almost uniformly positive. In 1998, Jonathan Rosenbaum of the Chicago Reader included the film in his unranked list of the best American films not included on the AFI Top 100.[21] Dave Kehr wrote in The New York Times: "The Tarnished Angels is among Sirk’s most self-conscious and artistically ambitious creations. ... This is bravura filmmaking in the service of a haunting vision. Yet there are moments of almost microscopic subtlety: the camera movement that expresses the moral reversal of the Hudson and Stack characters, one growing larger than the other; the infinite tenderness with which Hudson strokes Ms. Malone’s hair, helplessly trying to comfort her after a shock."[22]

TV Guide rated the film four out of a possible four stars and called it "the best-ever adaptation of a Faulkner novel for the screen, directed with passion and perception by Sirk ... The acting is first-rate here, and the script is outstanding, full of wit, black humor, and occasional fine poetic monologues."[23]

See also

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Notes

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  • Sirk, Douglas (1997). Sirk on Sirk : conversations with Jon Halliday. Faber and Faber.

References

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  1. ↑ IMDb entry
  2. ↑ Motion Picture Daily
  3. ↑ British Newspaper Archive
  4. 1 2 "Top Grossers of 1958". Variety. January 7, 1959. p. 48. Please note figures are for US and Canada only and are domestic rentals accruing to distributors as opposed to theatre gross
  5. ↑ Variety film review; November 20, 1957, page 6.
  6. ↑ Harrison's Reports film review; November 16, 1957, page 184.
  7. ↑ Sirk p 177
  8. ↑ Sirk p 136
  9. ↑ Vagg, Stephen (May 1, 2026). "Not Quite Movie Stars: Dorothy Malone". Filmink. Retrieved May 1, 2026.
  10. ↑ Sirk p 137
  11. ↑ Sirk p 129
  12. ↑ Sirk p 137
  13. ↑ Sirk p 139
  14. ↑ William Faulkner at the Special Collections Library of the University of Michigan Archived February 12, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
  15. ↑ Sirk p 136
  16. ↑ IMDb entry
  17. ↑ Motion Picture Daily
  18. ↑ Crowther, Bosley (January 7, 1958). "New York Times review". Movies.nytimes.com. Retrieved June 3, 2014.
  19. ↑ "The Tarnished Angels". Variety. November 20, 1957. p. 6.
  20. ↑ Sirk pn 139
  21. ↑ Rosenbaum, Jonathan (June 25, 1998). "List-o-Mania: Or, How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love American Movies". Chicago Reader. Archived from the original on April 13, 2020.
  22. ↑ Kehr, Dave (October 13, 2010). "Douglas Sirk Without Tears". The New York Times.
  23. ↑ "TV Guide review". Tvguide.com. Retrieved June 3, 2014.
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