A very strange title for a black and white movie as we have
no possible way of telling what colour dress Ava Gardner wore in this rather
muddled Spanish Civil War drama (other than from the poster!). The
Angel Wore Red (1960) was filmed in and around Italy’s Cinecitta
Studios, founded in 1937 by Benito Mussolini. Based on a 1953 novel, The Fair Bride, by Bruce Marshall it was
directed and adapted for the screen by Nunnally Johnson.
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| The ransacking of the church. |
It tells the story of Father Arturo Carrera a parish priest
who is concerned that the church cares more for modesty matters involving a women’s
naked knee and elbow than it does for its poor parishioners. Who, as its 1936,
are about ‘to experience the cruellest of
wars: civil war’ an announcement made at the beginning of the movie. Arturo
decides to take a different path and leave the confines of the church. It’s not
long before this disillusioned cleric falls in love
with Soledad a ‘working girl’ (Gardner), which puts his faith well and truly to
the test. In the meantime the republican’s have ransacked their place of
worship and killed or imprisoned the clergy and the nationalist groups are
gathering on the outskirts of the town.
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| Bogarde and Gardner. |
As well as Ms Gardner we have Dirk
Bogarde playing the priest, Joseph Cotton as an American journalist with an eye
patch and a box of false eyes whose character does not add much to the
narrative. Italian actor Vittorio De Sica plays the Communist General Clave
while Finlay Currie portrays the Bishop, but not for long! Not a particularly convincing Spanish civil
war drama - mainly because of the casting. Its not as though they don’t do
there best, its just that with Bogarde, Garner and Currie playing Spaniards its
not particular convincing also the on screen love affair between a call girl
and a priest is a little melodramatic. Originally released a year or so after
it was made it never well at the box office and was allegedly ‘one of MGM’s biggest flops of the year’[1].
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