Fallen Angel (Otto Premminger, 1946)
That was then, when Otto could still
see in the dark, anti-fascism was a
thing, and straight to the heart the
method. Even at the expense of a
premature cliché. Like sharp-talking,
eye-candy Stella waiting tables at
Pop’s, a Hopperesque, beach-front
diner, future real estate fodder, where
the regulars gawk, slobber, and thrust,
sublimated nickels into an insatiable
juke-box. Cue the guileless June,
another initiate in this cult of the fallen.
86'd by Zanuck for turning down his
musical, paid for with a sixteen year
see in the dark, anti-fascism was a
thing, and straight to the heart the
method. Even at the expense of a
premature cliché. Like sharp-talking,
eye-candy Stella waiting tables at
Pop’s, a Hopperesque, beach-front
diner, future real estate fodder, where
the regulars gawk, slobber, and thrust,
sublimated nickels into an insatiable
juke-box. Cue the guileless June,
another initiate in this cult of the fallen.
86'd by Zanuck for turning down his
musical, paid for with a sixteen year
absence. Meanwhile, designated racaille,
Eric plays both sides, as he drifts towards
the invariable, a stranger to every emotion
save paranoia. Not that a vedette need be
an actor. Take Mary Holland's nom-de-
plumed novel, revolving camera and
lighting illiminating Eric’s predatory
eavesdropping. Less ocular intercourse
than Otto eroticism. To be filed next to
another object of consumption: Otto
mobiles, savoured, rebuilt engines,
inflated chassis, primed for big budgets,
low mileage, laundered stock, back-
handed pay-offs, blacklisted schlemiels,
tuck-and-rolled garage, where no one enters, Ottomatically, from the sightless dark.
Force of Evil (Abraham Polonsky, 1948)
Fix the numbers, break the banks,
loan them money, take them over.
Truly an American story, with an
ever-thinning line between crime
and business, its pursuit, warping
happiness, and whatever. “Been
a businessman all my life," says
hard-working Leo, "and I still don’t
know what a business is.” Equally,
what is corruption and when wasn't
it endemic? But brother, Joe, has a
counter credo: “Taking what you
want is natural, but getting your
pleasure from not taking it…don’t
you see what a black thing that is.”
Naturally, refusing to take advantage,
is, for the takers, malignantly un-
American. And though one might
speculate on Joe's reference to "a
black thing," it's social Darwinism
that keeps it all going, and why Joe's
awakening is barely political, but as
much as Hollywood could take, then
as now. Blank verse, a last chance to
miss the mark before the demigods
arrived and dismantling became the
only game in town. Unlike those who
danced in fear, sleepless from what
should never have been said, with
numbers only takers could understand.
Truly an American story, with an
ever-thinning line between crime
and business, its pursuit, warping
happiness, and whatever. “Been
a businessman all my life," says
hard-working Leo, "and I still don’t
know what a business is.” Equally,
what is corruption and when wasn't
it endemic? But brother, Joe, has a
counter credo: “Taking what you
want is natural, but getting your
pleasure from not taking it…don’t
you see what a black thing that is.”
Naturally, refusing to take advantage,
is, for the takers, malignantly un-
American. And though one might
speculate on Joe's reference to "a
black thing," it's social Darwinism
that keeps it all going, and why Joe's
awakening is barely political, but as
much as Hollywood could take, then
as now. Blank verse, a last chance to
miss the mark before the demigods
arrived and dismantling became the
only game in town. Unlike those who
danced in fear, sleepless from what
should never have been said, with
numbers only takers could understand.
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