Angels Over Broadway (1940)

 
  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.