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17 out of 17 people found the following comment useful :-
An Interesting & Creative Film-Noir, 24 November 2004
Author: Snow Leopard from Ohio

This interesting, creative film-noir is much less widely known than are most of the classics of the genre, but it is well worth seeing both for the story and the cast. In a relatively brief running time, it packs in a satisfying and unpredictable story with numerous turns, with a very good cast that work together quite well. The settings are well-conceived, and together with the photography and the rest of the production, they establish a convincing noir atmosphere.

Dan Duryea is always so good at straightforward villainous "noir" roles that he sometimes seems not to have received many opportunities to do anything else, and so it's very nice to see him get such an interesting role here. He delivers very well, believably portraying the different sides of a more complex character. He also works surprisingly well with June Vincent, as together they try to solve the mystery.

Peter Lorre does not have a very large role, but as you would expect, he makes the most of it. Toss in Broderick Crawford as the police captain, and you have a cast very well suited for film-noir.

The story is not all that complex, but it is well-written, features some well-conceived turns, and fits together nicely. Roy William Neill has a good touch with the material, not trying to make it fancier or bigger than it is, but simply crafting a solid, enjoyable movie that has just about all that you could reasonably ask for in a film-noir.

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17 out of 18 people found the following comment useful :-
Minor Noir classic is a treat., 3 December 2002
8/10
Author: Evan J. Chase from Ohio

Don't miss this great Universal film noir mystery! Excellent cast brings to life a gritty story of neer-do-well songwriter, the murder of a dispicable sexy blackmailer, and the death sentence of seemingly the wrong man. Throw in wise guy police inspector Broderick Crawford, sinister nightclub owner Peter Lorre (in a fascinating role reversal from "Casablanca"--this time HE is the club owner)Peter Lorre is ALWAYS a treat!!

What a shame Dan Duryea didn't do more pictures! He's very effective in his role. The beautiful love interest June Vincent is another who should have made more pictures--she's very sweet and believeable.

This is another example of the Film Noir genre which was so popular in the 40s and early 50s--gorgeous photography, mood and plot twists!

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13 out of 13 people found the following comment useful :-
An unjustly neglected noir gem, 17 July 2003
Author: Dan Navarro (eldorado2@adelphia.net) from Ventura, California

"Black Angel" (Universal, 1946) is one of the most entertaining films noir of the 1940s, that era when Hollywood discovered the genre and brought to it a high polish.

In this outstanding dark mystery, based on the novel of the same name by Cornell Woolrich, director Roy William Neill guides stars Dan Duryea and June Vincent through a byzantine plot that begins with murder and proceeds through the arrest and conviction of an innocent person, then finally ends with the true murderer being uncovered.

It sounds simple and straightforward, but Neill keeps the audience off balance throughout. Just when we think one piece of evidence will pay off, it doesn't. When we think another bit of business is benign, it turns out to be a crucial clue to the unraveling of the mystery.

Duryea and Vincent are compelling throughout, and they are supported by two excellent character actors, the always-sinister Peter Lorre and future Oscar winner Broderick Crawford.

And I like to think that with "Black Angel," Universal finally atoned for the fatal mistake it made with another Woolrich thriller, "Phantom Lady," in 1944. In the book "Phantom Lady," written by Woolrich under his pseudonym William Irish, the plot was a tightly woven murder mystery, with the revelation of the culprit coming as a surprise to all but the cleverest readers. But when the story was filmed in 1944, Universal made the outrageous decision to reveal the killer's identity to the audience from the start.

In "Black Angel," the murderer's identity is kept from the public until the end, the suspense is sustained, and the final scenes allow the audience to exhale after an hour and a half of diverting tension.

Now that "Black Angel" is available in VHS, you can enjoy one of the finest examples of American film noir on your own screen.

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12 out of 13 people found the following comment useful :-
Mr. Duryea's Better Side, 12 November 2004
Author: theowinthrop from United States

It wasn't that Dan Duryea never played nice people. He could be typecast as an evil villain most of the time, but occasionally he got cast as a nice guy. The best examples of this is the movie executive in KATHIE O (1958), who helps a young child actress save her normal life from her mother's clutches, and this film, where he tries to help a condemned man's wife prove the man is innocent. The chief suspect is a crooked nightclub owner (Peter Lorre), and Duryea and the young lady attempt to get the proof to convince a police detective (Broderick Crawford) that Lorre did the the crime. Duryea (a musician) is the boyfriend of the murdered woman, and has an interest in finding the perpetrator. And he does at the end, but at considerable cost.

A superior film noir, and well worth the watching.

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8 out of 9 people found the following comment useful :-
Somewhat Overlooked Excellent Film Noir, 27 March 2004
10/10
Author: Hal Westcott from Washington State, USA

"The Black Angel" is really a great film-noir experience - plenty of plot twists throughout to really throw you off and some very interesting characters to boot!

Mavis Marlowe (Constance Dowling), a beautiful, heartless blackmailer, is murdered and one of her paramours who is married is accused of the crime. His wife, Catherine Bennett (June Vincent) pairs up with Marty Blair (Dan Duryea) to do some investigating of their own. Marty Blair is the widower of Mavis Marlowe, which keeps things interesting!

Enter some other interesting characters, a nightclub owner played by the always interesting and good actor Peter Lorre, who obviously has something to hide - and a Police Captain played by Broderick Crawford whose small part keeps the action going round and round!

Someone had to kill Mavis - wonder which one of the characters had the strongest motive? Watch and find out! Now on VHS!!! I rate this film a 10 out of 10!

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9 out of 11 people found the following comment useful :-
Dan Duryea: a Noir Icon, 13 April 2000
9/10
Author: mackjay from Out there in the dark

Dan Duryea appeared in a number of Films Noirs and always brought intensity and conviction to his villain roles. Something about his looks and voice sums up the essence of Noir.

Fortunately for Film Noir enthusiasts, "Black Angel" has finally been issued on video. This is an extremely enjoyable dark drama with a few variations of its own: first, the casting of Duryea in the lead is a wonderful asset, since he was an excellent actor and his previous screen incarnations had type-cast him as a weakling or a sleazy con artist; second, Duryea's character, a depressed musician is an unexpected turn on the noir hero, not a jaded detective, or ex-con loner. Further, the presence of Peter Lorre in any film, especially playing a villain is always welcome. And Constance Dowling has a memorable moment on screen as a tempermental singer.

Based on a Cornell Woolrich story, the movie's intrigue is sufficiently convoluted, though not as much as in some other films of this type. "Black Angel" is true Film Noir in its depiction of a down and out protagonist up against a seemingly unstoppable dark force.

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9 out of 12 people found the following comment useful :-
Unknown, Simple, But Surprisingly Good and Credible, 29 December 2005
8/10
Author: Claudio Carvalho from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

In Los Angeles, when the singer Mavis Marlowe (Constance Dowling) is found dead in her apartment, Kirk Bennett (John Phillips) is accused for the murder, since he had been blackmailed by the victim. Kirk's wife Catherine Bennett (June Vincent) believes her husband is innocent and joins to Martin Blair (Dan Duryea), the alcoholic former husband of Mavis, to investigate the crime and try to find the killer. They suspect of Marko (Peter Lorre), the owner of a night-club that was seen in Mavis' place in the night she was murdered, and they try to prove his possible guilty.

I had no information about "Black Angel", but being a great fan of film-noir, I decided to buy the DVD. I have just watched this unknown film, and I can say that it is surprisingly good. The simple and credible story is disclosed in a good pace and the plot point surprised me, since I did not have the slightest guess of who might be the criminal. The performances are very natural, and the black and white cinematography and the work of the camera are excellent, and in the beginning of the movie there is a spectacular traveling of the camera from Martin to Mavis apartment. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Anjo Diabólico" ("Diabolic Angel")

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8 out of 11 people found the following comment useful :-
Vintage noir, 26 March 2001
Author: Anne Sharp from USA

This is very much the sort of quintessential forties film noir that fanciers of the genre get nostalgic for, with just the right balance of grit and glamor, low-budget ambiance and surehanded Hollywood artistry. Dan Duryea is even better here than in his Fritz Lang films (he's got a better role), Veronica Lake clone June Vincent is refreshingly un Lake-like, and Peter Lorre is utterly adorable as a hard-boiled L.A. nightclub owner with a heart of Viennese schlag.

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4 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :-
drinking, murder, and music, 13 January 2005
7/10
Author: mgrindberg from Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico

Dan Duryea plays a pianist and songwriter who seeks shelter in a bottle whenever he gets dumped. In the opening scene, his estranged wife gives him the brush off and he goes on the first of his binges. There's a great closeup of him stumbling from one bar to the next. In the final locale, he's drunk out of his mind and banging away at a piano, and when he hits the final chord, he passes out as his head crashes down on the keyboard. Somewhere during that blurred night, we see his wife get strangled in a grisly scene where we see the hands of the killer but not the face, setting up the main plot as to who actually was the responsible party. Duryea ties the film together nicely, not an easy task given that it gets contrived in the hurry to find the murderer before an innocent man is executed. Duryea falls in love with the man's desperate wife and sets up the second round of heavy drinking when she rejects him that leads to a night in the county hospital where he goes into a surreal dream state that unlocks the mystery of the murder, all captured in vintage 40's FX. There's just enough tension here to save the film from itself, not so much the pending execution, which uses the clock on the wall and the newspaper headlines to remind us of its impending presence, but the portrayal of drinking and drunkenness which looks pretty realistic, and Duryea's performance, which remains good even in the film's laughable musical numbers in Peter Lorre's upscale night club.

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2 out of 2 people found the following comment useful :-
"That's What You Get When You Set Love So High. . . . .", 8 May 2006
9/10
Author: Roseofsharon969 (Roseofsharon979@live.com) from Canada

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

"Black Angel" is an unjustly forgotten film noir based on Cornell Woolrich's novel. Dan Duryea, tagged in the preview as "he's no angel again!", adds yet another complex, dark portrayal to his gallery of ambiguous bad guys as Martin Blair, the estranged husband of murder victim Mavis Marlowe (Constance Dowling). Mavis is a devious singer who is blackmailing her married lover, Kirk Bennett (John Phillips). Her immaculately decorated apartment, haunting song "Heartbreak" playing in the background, her sheer black gown highlighting what a bad dame she is. Her blackmailer is shrewd, unscrupulous and will stop at nothing to get her way; Dowling's career never fully took off, most likely because of her unconventional screen presence and her independent mind (coincidentally, her sister, Doris Dowling, also appeared in a similar role in another noir of the same year, playing Alan Ladd's unfaithful lush wife in "The Blue Dahlia"). Since Mavis has made so many enemies for herself, it's not surprising that she ends up murdered. As he had the most apparent reason of anyone to want her dead, Bennett is arrested, charged and convicted (on rather circumstantial evidence) and sentenced to death. His loyal wife, Catherine (June Vincent, another under-appreciated talent), vows to clear her husband and enlists the help of Blair, who had passed out drunk after he last saw Mavis, and the pair team up to investigate nightclub owner Marko (Peter Lorre, exceptional performance), posing as a singing act. However, as with many film noirs, there are many red herrings, and things are not what they appear to be. The ending is a surprise and the killer's identity will keep you guessing to the film's conclusion.

I don't know why this movie is barely remembered. There should have been records of the haunting vocal music. June Vincent, the only surviving cast member, retired from show business relatively early, and it's a shame that she did not progress to more roles like this in A pictures.

The DVD looks very good, although it shows faint signs of wear (which is to be expected for a film of its age), and the only extra included is the original theatrical trailer. Any fans of film noir should enjoy this one.

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