ANGELS OVER BROADWAY (1940)
By Ralph Santini –
***½
Before
we go to this review, let’s get something straight concerning legendary
screenwriter Ben Hecht and his involvement with his 1940 directorial effort Angels Over Broadway. It’s not exactly
his first one. Hecht and his longtime career partner Charles McArthur had a
short-lived production company of their own that made films located at the
Kaufman Astoria Studios for Paramount release in the mid-1930s. Four years
after Hecht and McArthur’s company disestablishment, Ben Hecht decided to make
a solo directorial career starting with Angels
Over Broadway which is the movie that I’ll be discussing right now.
Co-directed
with the film’s cinematographer Lee Garmes, the screenplay tells the story
about an obstinate hustler Bill O’Brien (A terrific portrayal by Douglas
Fairbanks, Jr.) who is about to brainstorm his next promotion for organized
crime involved in gambling. Meanwhile a financially desperate embezzler Charles
Engle (John Qualen, superb) is caught and accused by his boss Hopper (Character
actor Charles Watts, electrifying) demanding that he gives the money he stole
back with a great threat to put him and his wife together in jail. Engle
committed embezzlement because his wife was blackmailed by a lover she has been
secretly dating. After being fired from his job Engle is on his way on a rainy
night to a club where he wants to get drunk. And that’s where the fun all
begins with Bill O’Brien’s idea of looking at Engle knowing he might be good
for his next exploitation with the corrupt gamblers.
After
Bill already thought of bringing Engle to the club, a woman of Russian descent
Nina Barona (The ever beautiful Rita Hayworth, looking sexier than ever than in
her previous works) wants to find work in the club; before that she decides to
have a charming chat with Engle, but she is interrupted by Bill with his
obnoxious exploits to make fun of Nina. We are later introduced by another fine
character, this time a bad playwright Gene Gibbons (an excellent Thomas
Mitchell) who also decides to join a conversation with Engle; he is later
baffled by his suicide note and then decides to help the desperate man to earn
him back the $3,000 he stole from Hopper. The only problem with that is that
Bill needs Engle for his “promotion” with the mob and he wants no part of
Gibbons’ honest methods of helping Charles.
Douglas
Fairbanks Jr. and Rita Hayworth develop brilliant chemistry as Taming Of The
Shrew type of romantic leads. Fairbanks is just terrific an anti-heroic hustler
who won’t stick his neck out for nobody, not especially the incompetent
playwright that Thomas Mitchell plays fantastically. However that doesn’t seem
to prevent him from ruining Nina’s chance of getting a job in the club. She
simply tells him to “dismiss his hearse” because she’s angry at Bill’s goals to
show off. Hayworth’s role of Nina Barona seems to be an innocent young lady who
wants to become famous but she is constantly rejected from showbiz because of
her spoiled goals constantly damaged by Bill O’Brien. He actually needs her for
bait against Engle so he could be involved in the gambling joint run by the
movie’s main villain Dutch Enright (Ralph Theodore). The problem here is that
Nina wants no part of being involved in criminal activities and she even
implores Bill to bow out of his obsessions with organized crime. This is truly
an amazing character study because we never know whether Bill is in love with
Nina or not.
My next
topic for this analysis is the Charles Engle character with a portrayal nothing
short of excellent by John Qualen. He knows how to play his characters with
great focus on his vulnerability as a mere character actor and Charles Engle is
definitely no exception. He is one of those financially desperate characters
who embezzle’s Hopper’s money in order to save his marriage from the wife’s
scheming lover who wants to develop a Beauty Parlor. The scene where Hopper
catches Engle knowing about the embezzlement is an amazingly dark brooding
moment for 1940 standards. It’s one of the most harrowing and eerie movie
experiences that makes you want to look at this movie with great enthusiasm
because this is the story. In fact I consider this movie more about the Charles
Engle character than it is about Bill O’Brien. In other words John Qualen does
steal the show magnificently.
My next
topic goes to Oscar® winner Thomas Mitchell, majestic performance in this
movie. He is simply brilliant as the incompetent playwright who made three
“horrible” plays in a row and intents to make in a row. Gene Gibbons has been
out of luck because his stage plays were so bad that people don’t even want to
see them. Take a lady (Constance Worth, charming) who admits being sorry not
being able to attend his latest play and nearly becomes a victim of Gibbon’s
rather fake pickpocketing of a jewel that eventually turns out to be paste.
Gibbons is drunkard that gets involved in many misadventures including annoying
the audience in the club, lying to Charles Engle about promising the security
he took from the blonde lady, and even luring Bill O’Brien into honesty by
taking him, Nina and Engle to a closed theatre where his plays had been on
stage. Bill stills distrusts Gene and goes on insisting on taking Engle to his
exploits with Dutch Enright.
Of the
miscellaneous stuff I want to discuss for the analysis, the movie contains some
brilliantly realistic shots of rain in the city. I think the rain here
represents the most tempestuous moments of city life particularly the gloomy
moment when Charles Engle plans to commit suicide because of the guilt he feels
after committing the crime of embezzlement from Hopper. The movie also seems to
focus a lot on interiors like it was a stage play on the screen. That’s seems
pretty obvious coming a screenplay by Ben Hecht who specialized in many movies
acting like brilliant stage plays. Talking about photography, Lee Garmes black
and white cinematography is brilliant. He actually co-directed the movie to
give enough dark tone this drama and that really works because this film gives everything
that stands for thanks to its rich camera shots.
Angels
Over Broadway is certainly one of the most underrated films ever made, and
definitely needs a lot more reevaluation. It is largely ignored and I think we
need to do something about its obscure nature. Sure John Qualen steals the
show, but my criticisms are generally story rather than sometimes main
character use related. I think everybody should try giving this a second look.