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Angel Face

Play trailer Poster for Angel Face 1952 1h 31m Crime Drama Play Trailer Watchlist
Watchlist Tomatometer Popcornmeter
77% Tomatometer 13 Reviews 78% Popcornmeter 500+ Ratings
Beautiful Diane Tremayne (Jean Simmons) is a sophisticated, wealthy young woman capable of manipulating anyone who crosses her path. She also has a dark side she manages to conceal behind her appearance and her good manners. Soon after the untimely death of her stepmother (Barbara O'Neil), Diane pursues handsome Frank Jessup (Robert Mitchum). Before long, she starts to win him over -- but Frank quickly suspects that the manic Diane had more to do with her stepmother's death than she lets on.

Critics Reviews

View All (13) Critics Reviews
New York Times A capable cast, headed by Jean Simmons and Robert Mitchum, and a nice, taut story idea have been set adrift in a pretentious Freudian mist that wafts through the handsomely mounted proceedings with disastrous results. Rated: 1.5/5 Aug 8, 2006 Full Review Geoff Andrew Time Out Superb Freudian crime thriller, noir-inflected in theme but shot by and large in crisp, bright drawing-rooms. Feb 9, 2006 Full Review Dave Kehr Chicago Reader The sets, characters, and actions are extremely stylized, yet Preminger's moving camera gives them a frightening unity and fluidity, tracing a straight, clean line to a cliff top for one of the most audacious endings in film history. Mar 31, 2003 Full Review Matt Brunson Film Frenzy Film buffs smile knowingly at the mere mention of this title, for two reasons. Rated: 3.5/4 Jul 10, 2023 Full Review Manny Farber The Nation Angel Face is a congested thriller that kills off all its actors with modern sports cars. Nov 24, 2020 Full Review Allen Almachar The MacGuffin The dark themes quietly wrap themselves around us, pulling us into this story of love, anger, and madness. Aug 11, 2020 Full Review Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

View All (77) audience reviews
reyla g This may be another "masterpiece" like the "Postman Always Rings Twice". Except I like the beautiful setting and decor of the mansion in this movie over the more common place diner settings in Postman. Jean Simmons is so good in this film. I think she should have been nominated for an Oscar. The movie itself should have been nominated. However, I guess because the movie is so dark and the ending so shocking it would never have been nominated in 1953 or maybe even in 2024. See it for yourselves and decide! I just saw it the second time and it was even better than the first viewing, Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 09/16/24 Full Review mark g Beautiful and dark film with all kinds of Freudian themes. Simmons is spectacular, as is Mitchum. Rated 5 out of 5 stars 09/09/24 Full Review Steve D Unravels in the last 10min or so. Simmons is fantastic Rated 3 out of 5 stars 01/23/24 Full Review Leaburn O I liked the darkness of this classic 50s noir. The ending is predictable but fun. This one was watched on BBC iPlayer. Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 11/10/23 Full Review Audience Member Angel Face is definitely a well-acted film. I loved what Jean Simmons did with her part, because it was important that we sympathize with her for at least some of the story. She brought an innocence to the role that was endearing, and at least gave you reason to question whether she could possibly be devious in any way. Robert Mitchum is ridiculously charming, and seeing him in this role worked just right. You could see how he got himself into this predicament, and yet you pitied him for all the struggles he goes through. The two of them didn’t have as much chemistry as I would like for this plot, in fact I felt Mitchum had better chemistry with Mona Freeman. But I think the story works even if you’re not convinced the two leads are madly in love. One of my biggest complaints in Angel Face was that I saw where it was going most of the time. I had a pretty strong sense of who I could trust and who I could not, and mystery feels essential to the story they’re trying to tell. I won’t go any further into spoiling things in case you were to watch it and don’t see what is coming. My other struggle with Angel Face was just the fact that it doesn’t exactly have the most pleasant ending. Once again, i won’t go any further into details (and this is probably something I should expect from the film noir genre) but I just tend to like something a bit more uplifting at the end. This also might be a symptom of where my mind is right now, I’m simply not in the mindset to enjoy depressing films. Aside from some general issues I had with the story in Angel Face, it was still a well-made movie and if I could see myself liking it quite a bit under different circumstances. Rated 3 out of 5 stars 11/26/20 Full Review andy f Stick with this noir, it's a terrific little tale enhanced by Jean Simmons giving probably her best ever performance and Mitchum being typically stoic throughout. Rated 4 out of 5 stars 03/30/23 Full Review Read all reviews
Angel Face

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Cast & Crew

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Movie Info

Synopsis Beautiful Diane Tremayne (Jean Simmons) is a sophisticated, wealthy young woman capable of manipulating anyone who crosses her path. She also has a dark side she manages to conceal behind her appearance and her good manners. Soon after the untimely death of her stepmother (Barbara O'Neil), Diane pursues handsome Frank Jessup (Robert Mitchum). Before long, she starts to win him over -- but Frank quickly suspects that the manic Diane had more to do with her stepmother's death than she lets on.
Director
Otto Preminger
Producer
Otto Preminger
Screenwriter
Frank S. Nugent, Oscar Millard
Production Co
RKO Radio Pictures Inc.
Genre
Crime, Drama
Original Language
English
Release Date (DVD)
Jan 23, 2007
Runtime
1h 31m