Watch Angel Face For Free

Beautiful, moving film.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Despite the presence of two attractive people on the screen, Angel Face doesn't quite make it to the upper echelon of film noir classics. Jean Simmons even dons the same hairstyle that Barbara Stanwyck wore in Double Indemnity, but her chemistry with Robert Mitchum fizzled rather than sparked. Usually, I like his blasé charm, but in this movie, he obviously phoned in his performance.Like many film noirs, an innocent man is drawn into the deceitful world of a beautiful woman, led astray by his, well, powerful attraction to her. Jean Simmons certainly is beautiful, and the script is smart and snappy, but the scenes with the two leads feel a little lackluster. The best part of the movie is Robert Mitchum's girlfriend Mona Freeman. She's sassy and strong, and pretty much everything out her mouth makes you cheer and root for her.Rounding out the cast is Herbert Marshall, Jim Backus, Barbara O'Neil and Leon Ames. If you like this genre, give Angel Face a try, but it probably won't end up being your favorite. You'll come out of it a Mona Freeman fan, though!

Produced and directed by Otto Preminger, with a screenplay by Oscar Millard and Frank Nugent that was based on a Chester Erskine story, this slightly above average crime drama film-noir features Robert Mitchum as working class Frank Jessup and Jean Simmons (in the title role) as Diane Tremayne, a seemingly sweet 'debutante' daddy's girl who's used to getting what she wants.After her mother was killed in Lorraine, France during a World War II bombing, Diane's novelist father Charles (Herbert Marshall) remarried the wealthy Catherine (Barbara O'Neil); they moved to the States where he stopped writing, becoming a henpecked husband dependent on her money. Some nine years later, Diane now feels neglected by her father and controlled by her step-mother, a situation she's compelled to change by using Mitchum's character.The film opens with ambulance drivers Jessup and Bill Crompton (Kenneth Tobey) being called to the Tremayne estate where it's suspected that Catherine has just tried to commit suicide with her fireplace's gas, despite the fact that she claims someone's tried to murder her. While leaving the residence, Frank meets Diane, who's playing the piano and acting forlorn, even hysterical. She later follows him to a restaurant where she charms him into cancelling his date with his steady girlfriend Mary Wilton (Mona Freeman) and the two enjoy an evening of dining and dancing. Diane learns that Frank is a former race-car driver and is working odd jobs while trying to save enough to open his own garage. The next day, Diane invites Mary to lunch and tells her that she wants to help them by giving Frank $1,000 for his future plans. Mary sees through Diane's manipulation and is later angry with Frank for lying to her about the previous evening. Still, Diane convinces Catherine, a notoriously poor driver, into hiring Frank as their family's chauffeur.But after some time living over the garage and witnessing Diane's ways, even dim-witted Frank sees that something's not right and suspects he's being used by her as part of a larger scheme. However, she's able to convince him to stay a little longer, to contemplate taking her away with him. Shortly thereafter, she executes her plan, successfully killing her step-mother Catherine when her car accelerates in reverse off an embankment. Unfortunately, she'd also accidentally killed her father in the process, which causes her to have a mental breakdown. Since Diane's suitcase was found in Frank's room, both are accused of murder. A clever defense attorney, Fred Barrett (Leon Ames), convinces Diane not to confess to the crime, that Frank too would be incarcerated. He also persuades Frank to marry Diane to explain the suitcase as part of their planned elopement. He then successfully battles District Attorney Judson (Jim Backus) in the trial to prove reasonable doubt exists, that a cotter pin could have failed, such that the rendered verdict is "not guilty".Diane then learns that her husband Frank doesn't want her; he wants to try to go back to Mary, but learns that she is engaged to Bill. Meanwhile, Diane insists that lawyer Barrett record her confession of guilt, but he informs her that, due to double-jeopardy, she can't be convicted of the crime. She returns home feeling there's no reason to live, but is then excited to see that Frank is there too. However, he is packing and planning to head to Mexico to get away from her. She insists on taking him to the bus station and he reluctantly agrees. She has champagne in the car and asks him to pour them one last drink. She starts the car forward causing him to spill it, he snaps at her and then she snaps - she throws the car in reverse and jams on the accelerator, hurling them backwards off the same embankment and killing them both, as the story ends.

As the movie opens, an ambulance is responding to an accident--or an attempted murder, or a suicide—at the mansion of the wealthy Catherine Tremayne (Catherine O'Neil). One of the drivers is Frank Jessup (Robert Mitchum). After a brief police investigation of her husband (Herbert Marshall) and stepdaughter Diane (Jean Simmons), the case is essentially closed as an accident. As Frank leaves the house, he meets Diane and briefly talks to her. She then follows him to a coffee shop and tries to win him over by various ploys. One ploy is to get her stepmother to invest a in garage with Frank—he is a former sports car driver and seems to love Diane's Jaguar!! Finally, she talks him into becoming the family chauffeur—even though they really don't need one. In sprite of her attempts to manipulate him, Frank is no fool: he sees right through her. One day, as Diane's stepmother starts to go to her bridge club, her father asks his wife for a ride into town. As the two drive away, the car sticks in reverse and plunges over a cliff killing the two instantly. Following this, Diane—who had been devoted to her father--is hospitalized for depression. Frank is tired and convicted of rigging the car. Thanks to their clever lawyer (Leon Ames), Frank is acquitted by marrying Diane. Once acquitted, the two are left alone with each other. Frank leaves Diane for his old girlfriend. When Diane is left alone, she wants to plead guilty to the double murder but can't legally do it.This movie has so many elements in common with The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946) where Leon Ames also plays the clever lawyer—that it basically seems like a poor remake of it and it's even better predecessor, Ossessione (1943). Is Simmons is the femme fatal of this film noir, she gives a strange performance as a young sociopath who adores her father and hates her stepmother. The fact that her motives seem unclear for these feelings made the plot confusing and unconvincing If anything saves this movie at all, it is the cool and steady performance from Robert Mitchum.

From director Otto Preminger (Laura, Carmen Jones, Anatomy of a Murder), this was a near film noir style film that I saw listed in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, so I was definitely going to watch it. Basically, in Beverly Hills, Mrs. Catherine Tremayne (Barbara O'Neil) was found mysteriously poisoned by gas in her home, and ambulance driver Frank Jessup (Robert Mitchum) is there at the cliff side estate to treat her, the police believe it was accidental, but she believes someone is trying to kill her. Before Frank leaves he notices her beautiful English stepdaughter Diane (Jean Simmons) playing the piano, and he slaps her when she gets hysterical, she slaps him back, and later he is unaware she is following him, and they sit together in a diner and begin flirting. Eventually, after not being to get her on the phone, Frank turns down an offer from his girl friend Mary Wilton (Mona Freeman) to go to dinner together, and he instead goes to dinner with Diane who tells him all about her novelist father who she cares for, and she also offers to help him pay for his own garage he wants to own. Diane next invites Mary for lunch and tells her that she and Frank got together, this does cause her to feel less trustworthy towards him, and he does lie to Mary again about another date they have together. While Mary ditches him for longtime admirer Bill Crompton (Kenneth Tobey), and after having words with her Frank does forgive Diane, who convinces her parents to hire him as the chauffeur, and she also tries to convince her stepmother of the garage proposal. Diane tells him that Catherine, who was considering the proposal, threw it in the trash, and apparently would fire him and lock her up if she found out they were with each other, she is sure her stepmother has control over her weak father Charles (Herbert Marshall). Frank refuses to believe her next story that Catherine tried to kill her with gas from the fireplace, and next day he tells Mary he is going to leave his job and Diane, and when she realises he is going she begs him to stay, and eventually he agrees until he can plan what to do next. Diane is seen taking something out of the car, and when Catherine and Charles get in the car together she tries to put it into gear, but the car instead screeches backwards, and they both fall to death down the cliff behind them. Both Diane and Frank are arrested for suspected murder, if she is found innocent Diane stands to inherit Catherine's fortune, but she is at the moment in a prison hospital having apparently suffered a nervous breakdown. Catherine's lawyer Arthur Vance (Raymond Greenleaf) brings in renowned defence lawyer Fred Barrett (Leon Ames) to defend the heiress, but before the trial starts Frank and Diane get married as part of the case to make them look more innocent. Barrett does indeed prove himself a worthy defence lawyer planting ideas in the jurors heads that they planned to elope, that anybody could have tampered with the car's transmission and steering mechanisms, and of course that they are just an ordinary loving couple. Frank and Diane are found innocent by the jury, but once they are back home he wants an immediate divorce, and she finally confesses about her hatred for Catherine who in her head was getting more attention than she personally did from her father. Frank insists he will return to Mary, but she of course is still leaning towards Bill, while Diane goes back to the office of Barrett and wants to make a witnessed confession to the murder of her parents, to which she is guilty, but he reminds her of double jeopardy. Returning home Diane finds Frank packed and ready to go to Mexico, he refuses to let her come with him, but agrees to let her drive him to the station, but she deliberately forces the car back into reverse, and they too go off the cliff and fall to their deaths. Also starring Griff Barnett as The Judge, Robert Gist as Miller and Jim Backus as District Attorney Judson. Mitchum is really good as the moody driver stuck in the middle of trouble, and Simmons is absolutely perfect as the beautiful Femme Fetale who manipulates everyone to her advantage and is not bothered who gets hurt emotionally or physically, the thrilling and twisted moments are well done, the court case sequence is interesting, and the dark romance is a big hook, it is certainly a must see crime drama. Very good!