Angels Too Close To The Ground-With Otto Preminger’s Fallen Angel In Mind

DVD Review

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

Fallen Angel, starring Dana Andrews, Alice Faye, Linda Darnell, Charles Bickford

Who knows where it all started to go bad, where the luck ran out, where a guy, a smart guy, a street smart guy, took the tumble, became the fall guy for every crooked gee to take aim at, every gee to go target shooting for fallen angels in this good green breast of earth. Yeah, Eric, Eric Stanton if anybody was asking although probably not in New York City and points west not if they had sense enough to know that this hell’s angel was built for the tumble, had had a tough stretch, let the gambling in Vegas get the best of him. Got tossed out of that town (or to hear him tell it, tell it when he was on his uppers so take that for what it is worth, left before he got tossed out) just like a million other guys who couldn’t figure the dice, couldn’t keep the count at blackjack, let the wheel hit red too many times and wound up in North Vegas nursing his wounds before taking that first early morning Greyhound out and hoping whatever north, south east, west way he was heading it was better than that last stretch of tough luck for a guy on the make.

Yeah Eric took that early morning Greyhound with a buck in his pocket, just another grifter drifting west because east was played out for him. Hit L.A. first as a bust. Figured to drift north and to hit Frisco running after seeing what was what in the city of angels had to say, and maybe work up some publicity work for guys or dames who needed such built-ups like he had done in the big city back east before he got antsy and sold out to go to greener pastures, to go live the easy life. Had walked to the bus station to save dough for a cup of joe to ward off the chill and the prospects of sitting next to some overweight snorer, some wayward mother who let her kid run wild on his head or some homely dame who took the bus as her version of the lonely hearts club. Losers, yeah, losers but as he stepped up on the bus giving his ticket to the suspicious bus driver who wondered, wondered out loud whether this stumblebum was going to stiff him for the trip to Frisco since he had only bought a  ticket to Monterey down the peninsula.          

Sometimes a guy’s luck, our boy Eric’s luck, just plain runs out, and this time that wise- guy bus-driver decided that he was the president of the damn company or something, had a stake in turning a down on his luck back on his heels and him, the bus driver, just making chump change wages and hard luck stories. Decided that Eric, a little dusty from the road, looking like maybe he had slept, eaten, washed up too good of late was a primo candidate for the toss. So he rousted Eric, who was doing the classic no dough sleeping gag though the last stop. But no go now as he took the toss in Watsonville, the only thing that town had going for it was the ocean you could hear in the background as the bus roared off into the Frisco-bound night.   

So Eric walked, walked to the waterfront, figuring he could find a flop at the Seaman’s Mission giving some story about how he had missed his ship or something (and he really had, really had missed his ship that is) when the hunger got to him as he stood in front of Pop’s Eats, a low rent diner where maybe he could promote himself a burger and cup of joe, maybe a slice of Mom’s pie with cheese that such places always touted if the cook was a bastard about the meat. So he entered the joint, cast his fate to the wind once again. Asked the Pop of the joint for a cup of joe, asked for a burger with the works figuring if he ate it up the worse that would happen is he would be pearl-diving for the night, no sweat he had done that plenty when he was down and out before.  

Then she came in, Miss Round-heels no question, he had known the type all his life but couldn’t stop looking at this one. Knew she was a ball-buster, a bitch, a heart-breaker and wouldn’t think twice about it once she was done with a guy as she walked over him. Yeah, just another tramp like back home where grew up in Carver before heading to New Jack City. All softness and swerve, big flowing black hair, Spanish laughing eyes to die for (on the surface, surface laughing)   all combined together to give a smoldering, sultry, swaying piece of dynamite in cashmere and skirt. It turned out she was Pop’s waitress, Stella, aren’t all these tramp angel babies always called Stella or something like that, who had gone on a three day tryst with some fast-talking salesman who left her in the lurch in Gilroy to go back to his ever-loving wife and kids. He could tell at a glance though that Pops was crazy for her as old and homely as he was, would have given her anything she wanted if she took look one at him. He could tell a couple of other guys who were nursing their coffees once she came in were crazy for her too against all reason.

Naturally Eric without even a murmur of doubt knew that he was going to take dead aim at her, going to play with hell’s angels and maybe change his luck, who knew stranger things had happened. And so over the next several days he made his big moves, played to her genetic come hither vanities and had some success. What put him over the top with Stella was the big deal everybody made out of his work when he got the whole two-bit town sitting quietly at a buck a head in the town auditorium listening to his newly found partner, a wise guy séance con man. What pulled everybody in was when this June who was the conscience of the town after he had played to her vanities gave her approval. Got Stella all worked up too about the fortune-teller like he was the real thing. Right there Eric should have taken up the con man’s offer to work together heading north but that was not Eric’s play, would not have satisfied that itch he had every time he thought about his fallen angel.

You never know about dames, even heart-breakers and tramps, because as Eric let Stella get deeper under his skin she started getting middle class dreams in a hurry. Like Eric, and maybe that was why he fell so hard, Stella was from nowhere, had grown up with nothing, nothing but unfulfilled “from hunger” wanting habits. So if Eric wanted to share her bed he had to show her more than a couple of cheap trick tickets. Wanted a ring and marriage. And Eric bought into that bit. Really lost his moorings once she put the full court press on. Here is his scheme which tells you how bad he really had it, and why he should have put his thumb out on that Pacific Coast Highway any direction the minute the idea entered his head. He was going to wine and dine that June who gave her approval for the séance. Not only wine and dine her but marry her so he could get the dough her father had left her which she was entitled to when she got married. Nice trick to marry one gal to get to marry another. Guess what it worked, the getting married part anyway. Jesus.       

This is where things got dicey, where dealing with a two-timing tramp like Stella was a no-win situation. (Stella made it clear to Eric that she was still playing the field while he made his play for June and their happiness. Ouch.) Stella had left a long, long string of broken hearts and it went to figure that not every guy was ready to take the brush-off with the grain of salt. One fine morning Stella wound up dead, very dead in her apartment. The number one fall guy: drifter Eric. No way was Eric going to get out from under this one, he might as well as have had a bullseye on his back, not if one Mark Judd has anything to do with it. See Judd was one of the guys who had an interest in Stella. Had taken his brush-off with less that equanimity but he was all cop before he had retired, a booze problem forced him out people said. He was going to get to the bottom of Stella’s murder even if, or maybe especially if, he could frame Eric for it. He almost did, almost had Eric on the ropes (along with that wife June who was going to stand  by her man no matter what even if he still was half in love with a tramp).

But let’s go back to the beginning, to the night she came all fire and smoke into his life. Back too that first night when he honed in on Stella. Pops saw that chemical reaction between them even if took a while to play out and if there was one thing he wanted for himself in this wicked old world that was Stella. Stella or nothing. So at the final confrontation in the diner after Eric figured out all the pieces once he got some smarts back after the twists Stella had put him through Pops played his hand for keeps. Played it wrong as it turned out because just as he was to reach under the counter for his rat-tat-tat Judd came in gun blaring to snuff out the old bastard’s life.          

Eric, well, Eric finally got religion, finally figured the allure of every tramp he was attracted to was a losing proposition so he rode off into the sunset with June. And that cool pile of dough she had to spend on whatever his next big idea would be. If June were smart though she would make sure she looked over her shoulder if some new tramp came into town. Yeah, it’s tough to love a fallen angel.