The main character in Black Angel, Martin (Marty) Blair, has quite a problem with alcohol, and he isn’t the best judge of women. He is played by Dan Duryea, one of my all-time favorite noir actors. Duryea’s portrayal of a man tormented by his addiction is remarkable, and he is one of the best at playing drunk and disheveled. Marty Blair is a deeply flawed man who comes through in the end, but the road getting there is tortured. He is the black angel of the title and a perfect character for a film noir.
Mavis Marlowe, Marty Blair’s wife, receives a heart-shaped brooch delivered by messenger. She’s not happy about receiving the gift. She calls the doorman and instructs him not to allow Marty Blair into the apartment building. Blair tries to get into the building anyway, but the doorman stops him. Right after Blair leaves, Peter Lorre’s character Marko shows up. Marko is the owner of a nightclub called Rio’s and he is said to have mob connections, but that kind of detail isn’t really necessary where Peter Lorre is concerned. It’s easy for viewers to suspect him of almost anything from the outset, no matter what character he is playing.
Mavis is killed, and Kirk Bennett, the man who finds her body, sees the same heart-shaped brooch in the apartment that was sent to her earlier. Bennett is tried for Mavis Marlowe’s murder and is found guilty. His wife, Cathy Bennett, insists that her husband is innocent, and she tries to convince Captain Flood in the police department to continue investigating. But with a verdict, the case is closed, and there is nothing more that he can do. Cathy Bennett decides to try some investigating of her own.
(This blog post about Black Angel contains all the spoilers.)
Marty Blair plays piano at a popular nightspot. He lives at a much seedier location: the Palace Hotel. Marty’s friend Joe appreciates his piano playing, and he looks after Marty when he drinks too much, something he does when Marty drinks while working, too. The night that Marty is rejected by his wife Mavis is a particularly tough night for Marty, and he is drunk before his act is finished.
Cathy finds Marty in his room at the Palace Hotel and talks to him about the case. He insists that he knows nothing about it. Kirk Bennett had a matchbook with “Crestview 2111” written inside it, and Marty knows that the number was written in Mavis’s handwriting. Marty recognizes it when he and Cathy go through her husband’s possessions. Marty tries the phone number: It’s for Rio’s, Marko’s nightclub on Sunset Strip. Cathy is a singer, and she and Marty decide to audition for an act at Rio’s. They suspect Marko of being the murderer, and they plan to use their nightclub act to investigate Marko.
Marty now has free rein at the Bennett home. He finds a liquor bottle in Cathy’s kitchen cabinets, but she comes home in time, and he replaces the bottle instead of taking a drink. The reason that he has such willpower is because he is falling in love with Cathy. He even writes a love song for Cathy as part of their new nightclub act at Rio’s. As long Marty he feels that he has a chance with Cathy, his willpower remains strong.
Cathy has agreed to spend so much time with Marty and to form a nightclub act, however, because she wants to find out what he knows about Mavis Marlowe’s murder. She doesn’t really love Marty and never did. Cathy might sound like she is playing the role of a femme fatale, but she doesn’t reveal this bit of information right away, and I didn’t suspect that she was leading Marty on. Even when she admits that she still loves her husband, it is easy to believe that she cares about Marty.
But Marty is inconsolable when Cathy admits to him that she probably never loved him. Marty does well when his feelings are requited; when he is rejected, he throws all caution to the wind. He was rejected by Mavis and went on a bender; he goes on a bender again because of Cathy’s rejection. He gets so drunk that he blacks out and gets into a barroom brawl.
His subsequent arrest and detoxification under professional care leads to an episode of delirium for Marty. During his hallucinations, he remembers what happened the night of Mavis’s murder. Marty Blair’s memory sequence is one of the best in classic film. It is shot differently, with a wavy, liquid type of filter that is perfect for someone like Blair who is in the habit of drowning himself in alcohol.
I found myself thinking about Black Angel long after the movie ended. It depicts alcoholism at its worst. Marty Blair is prone to alcoholic blackouts, and he is capable of violence during these episodes. Some details in the film sent me to the computer for an online search. For example, Doctor Courtney explains that Marty suffered from Korsakoff’s psychosis (which I found online at a site called ScienceDirect), a kind of alcoholic amnesia, and that’s why he doesn’t remember killing his wife. And he doesn’t remember what he did until he drinks himself into another stupor and hallucinates, with some of the details of his crime falling into place during his hallucinations.
Marty is a murderer, although he committed his crime while he was under the influence of alcohol, which makes him less culpable in the eyes of the law and explains why he doesn’t remember. Once Marty realizes what he has done, he also realizes that he has to save Kirk Bennett, who was found guilty of the murder and is scheduled to be put to death for the crime. Marty’s hospitalization for his drunkenness and combative behavior almost prevents him from calling Captain Flood and saving Kirk Bennett’s life, but he is good at breaking rules, and he breaks more rules once more for a very good cause.
In spite of Marty’s good intentions (and, for me, in spite of the fact that he is portrayed by one of my favorite noir actors), it’s a bit hard to describe him as a likable character. But this is also the reason that he is such a good film noir character. He is deeply flawed and makes so many poor decisions, but he manages to surmount all his personal obstacles to do the right thing for a woman who does care about what happens to him and is gentle and honest with him in the end.
Peter Lorre as Marko is a very successful distraction in the story. Cathy and Marty suspect him, which leads them (and thus viewers) on a wild goose chase. But it’s a realistic and ultimately entertaining distraction. And it helps to keep the real killer a surprise until almost the end, when Marty’s hallucinatory episode reveals the murderer’s identity. Without the distraction of Marko, Marty and Cathy wouldn’t have spent enough time together, and viewers would never know the good side to Marty, the one capable of falling in love and saving another man’s life.
August 2, 1946, release date • Directed by Roy William Neill • Screenplay by Roy Chanslor • Based on the novel The Black Angel by Cornell Woolrich • Music by Frank Skinner • Edited by Saul A. Goodkind • Cinematography by Paul Ivano
Dan Duryea as Martin (aka Marty) Blair • June Vincent as Catherine (aka Cathy) Bennett • Peter Lorre as Marko • Broderick Crawford as Captain Flood • Constance Dowling as Mavis Marlowe • John Phillips as Kirk Bennett • Wallace Ford as Joe • Hobart Cavanaugh as the Palace Hotel caretaker • Freddie Steele as Lucky, the bouncer • Ben Bard as Freddie, the bartender • Marion Martin as Millie • Archie Twitchell (credited as Michael Branden) as George Mitchell • Robert Williams as the second detective • Junius Matthews as Dr. Courtney • Eddy Chandler as Sergeant Baker • Dick Wessel as Mavis’s doorman
Distributed by Universal Pictures • Produced by Universal Pictures
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