Spotlight

Spotlight Date: 21-December-08
Spoiler Rating: Medium

Angels Over Broadway (1940)

Well, well. I had thought of Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., as a charming persona who added zest to lighthearted films, but after watching Angels Over Broadway I consider him an actor. And this is an actors' movie, a character-driven morality tale with lots of dialogue and little action. Fairbanks takes center stage as Bill O'Brien, a dashing ne'er-do-well who stalks the streets of New York looking for easy cons and simple swindles. He is too sensible, decent, or self-centered to join a big-time operation like the mob, but he has no problem throwing the occasional sucker their way. In a tough world he is hell-bent on looking out for number one.

What seems like a fast one becomes a defining point in Bill's life. He spots a downcast man (John Qualen) who is carelessly spending money and assumes that he is a bored tycoon in town on business. Bill decides to lure the man to a hoodlum's poker game and take a cut of what he loses to rigged cards. But a couple of obstacles rise in his way. First, he casually picks up a sweet and dopey chorus girl (Rita Hayworth) who is trying to get a job by sleeping with a nightclub owner. Second, a drunken has-been playwright (Thomas Mitchell) uncovers the true identity of the man Bill chose as his mark. Far from being a tycoon, the poor guy is a penniless local about to commit suicide because he embezzled $3,000 from a business partner and got caught. The playwright determines to save the man by finding $3,000 before morning and, having revealed the truth, inspires the chorus girl to want to do the same.

So there it is: four losers meet in a bar with one of their lives on the line. Two of them want to save the other, but one does not want to get involved in anything that will not fleece his own pockets. In this respect he is the one who needs to be saved. It is an unusual setup in its particulars, although at heart it echoes other Depression-era movies by pitting humanity and compassion against the hunger for money.

Mitchell's character mocks his own penchant for dramatic lines, and this points to the one quibble I have with the film. Prolific screenwriter Ben Hecht, who also produced and directed (and had some success as a playwright), is almost too clever for his story. Heaven forbid I advocate the dumbing-down of a script, but this one is at times too sophisticated for the characters whose lives it illuminates. Even so, it is gratifying to behold the unfortunate foursome taking a gamble where redemption and love, not money, is at stake.

Copyright © 2008 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.