The Tarnished Angels (1958)

Although we got some of the famous actors at that time, but the screenplay was just bad, and the directing was not good either. How could it possible you'd so generously let three adult strangers and a kid you met in a carnival stay in your apartment? You bought two large paper bags of food and groceries for them, with a pretty woman beside you, but when you reached your apartment, the woman simply turned around and walked away. What was that woman's role? An escort? Just served the scene to accompany you back in the midnight? Then....well, what a terrible script with inexplainable and illogic storyline. The dialog felt more like the dialog we only saw in a play on a stage, not a bit natural at all. The original novel must be quite bad already, so when it was so stupidly adapted into a movie script, it became even worse. This film looked more like those movies adapted from those Tennessee Williams' plays, those dialog might feel okay on a stage, but once use them in movies, it's just felt awkward and unnatural.

Terrific Douglas Sirk melodrama from the William Faulkner novel "Pylon." I have not read the Faulker book, but I'm guessing it was nowhere as soapy as the film, but as soapy melodrama's go, no one does them better than Douglas Sirk. Robert Stack plays a boozy disillusioned WWI flying ace who now spends his days as a barnstorming pilot at rural carnivals with his neglected parachutist wife, Dorothy Malone, who he only married as a result of a literal roll of the dice. Rock Hudson plays a reporter doing a story on this dysfunctional traveling family of flyers that also includes Jack Carson, Troy Donahue, and William Schallert. Sirk's perchance for over- the-top drama is probably not going to look great to modern viewers, but for fans of classic Hollywood and fans of Sirk in particular, this film is a must see!

Depression-era newspaper reporter Rock Hudson (as Burke Devlin) rescues a boy from teasing, and returns him to his parents. As it turns out, nine-year-old Chris Olsen (as Jack) is the son of World War I hero Robert Stack (as Roger Shumann), who is using his piloting muscle in a New Orleans carnival act known as "The Flying Shumanns". Mr. Stack's wife, curvaceously beautiful blonde Dorothy Malone (as LaVerne), does a parachute stunt. And, the couple's mechanic, chubby Jack Carson (as Jiggs), keeps the plane's engine humming. The quartet appears hale and hearty, but are destitute when Mr. Carson spends their meager funds on a pair of boots. Instead of moving into a "Hooverville", they go to live in Mr. Hudson's small apartment.Hudson, who drinks and smokes like a reporter should, wants to do a story on "The Flying Shumanns" for the Picayune.In flashback, we learn Malone married Stack (whilst in the "family way") instead of Carson, who was the man teased for being young Olsen's real father in the opening segment. Carson is still in love with Malone, who seems to be torn between Hudson and Stack. But, that's not all. Stack's aviating rival, rotund Robert Middleton (as Matt Ord), is also in love with Malone. And, after a flying tragedy involving Stack and Middleton's pilot (Troy Donahue), Malone is sent to prostitute herself in exchange for a new plane (for Stack). This tests how much each of the men - Hudson, Stack, Carson, Middleton - love Malone.And, it may also reveal who Malone will take to the closing credits…William Faulkner's "The Tarnished Angels" reunites director Douglas Sirk and Hudson with two of their "Written on the Wind" (1956) co-stars, Malone and Stack. They are certainly attractive, but seem more like they are posturing for a 1950s (where these folks should have been put) glamour magazine than starring as 1930s New Orleans depression-era denizens. The most ludicrous sequence involves Malone showing off her underwear during an impossible to imagine parachute and swing stunt - the arm muscles required for this feat would be considerable. The carnival backdrop is a highlight, it's used well in the opening and climax.****** The Tarnished Angels (11/21/57) Douglas Sirk ~ Rock Hudson, Dorothy Malone, Robert Stack, Jack Carson

Though exchanging his usual glossy urban surroundings for a rough open-air environment – dealing as it does with vagrant members of an air show/race (which is perhaps why it was shot in black-and-white) – this typical Sirk effort is particularly redolent of his Teutonic background: powerful (indeed often histrionic), moodily-lit and with performances to match (allowing Rock Hudson one of his finest dramatic showcases, most effective towards the end when he gives his newspaper editor boss a piece of his mind). Incidentally, its three stars – Hudson, Robert Stack and Dorothy Malone – had just come off the same director's WRITTEN ON THE WIND (1956); Malone is the woman admired by virtually the entire male cast including her egocentric spouse (ace flyer Stack), his long-suffering mechanic (Jack Carson), hated entrepreneur (Robert Middleton) and, the latest recruit, honest (read alcoholic) reporter Hudson. Also on hand is a young boy, picked on over his doubtful parentage, whom Hudson befriends and offers hospitality to his whole family (eventually tagging along himself after being fired from his job). Malone opens her heart to him one night and he decides to help when Stack has no qualms about his wife ingratiating herself with Middleton for his sake over the acquisition of a new plane (Stack's original vehicle had been destroyed in a crash which also killed Middleton's protégé, Troy Donahue!). After Stack himself perishes in another race and a gloomy luncheon is thrown in his honor, Hudson arranges for Malone and her son to start a new life elsewhere.