Angel (1937)

User Rating:

7.5/10   

Director:

Ernst Lubitsch

Writers:

Melchior Lengyel (play)
Guy Bolton (adaptation) ...

Release Date:

29 October 1937 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama | Romance

Tagline:

I want love - and I'm going to get it!

Plot:

Woman and her husband take separate vacations, and she falls in love with another man. |

Plot Keywords:

Paris | Unrequited Love | Servant | Gambling | Salon

Cast

Marlene Dietrich	...	Maria 'Angel' Barker, aka Mrs. Brown
Herbert Marshall	...	Sir Frederick Barker
Melvyn Douglas	...	Anthony 'Tony' Halton
Edward Everett Horton	...	Graham
Ernest Cossart	...	Christopher 'Chris' Wilton
Laura Hope Crews	...	Grand Duchess Anna Dmitrievna
Herbert Mundin	...	Mr. Greenwood
Dennie Moore	...	Emma MacGillicuddy Wilton
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Ivan Lebedeff	...	Prince Vladimir Gregorovitch (scenes deleted)

Runtime:

91 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | French

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Mirrophonic Recording)

Certification:

UK:A (original rating) | UK:U (re-rating) (2006) | UK:12 | France:U | Finland:K-16 | Portugal:M/12 | USA:Approved (PCA #3399)

Filming Locations:

Santa Anita Park - 285 West Huntington Drive, Arcadia, California, USA

Company:

Paramount Pictures

Trivia:

Paramount paid $8,500 for Melchior Lengyel's play. The film length was gradually cut from 2916.94m (11 reels) to 2478.33m (nine reels) after pre-release showings in New York City and six California cities from 25 July 1937 to 13 September 1937.

Quotes:

Maria: What's the matter, darling? Is it France?
Sir Frederick: No, no. It's Yugoslavia.
Maria: Oh, I see.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Le cinéma passe à table (2005) (TV)

Soundtrack:

The Barber of Seville

Neglected gem, deserves reissuing.

The Lubitsch touch is omnipresent in this relatively unknown but extraordinary romantic comedy. The theme of a potential marital infidelity of a disaffected upper class wife (a gleaming Marlene Dietrich) is dealt with unusual sophistication and insight, building up slowly to a brilliant denouement, while the core dilemmas and the predicament of the main character are continuously and subtly underscored. The confrontations between the characters are a delight of restrained pathos, whereas Lubitsch, unsurprisingly, perfectly recreates a confined world of rigid social norms that suppresses any emotional profusion. All the performances are top notch, the secondary characters are equally memorable and the whole film is pervaded by the genius of one of cinemas most charismatic directors, Ernst Lubitsch. One wishes that modern romantic comedies had only maintained even a fraction of the wit and incisiveness that Lubitsch established as a norm in the 30s.