The Angel Wore Red.

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.

 

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.

 

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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[1] The Eddie Mannix Ledger, Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library, Center for Motion Picture Study

Madame de…

Madame de....

‘Madame de… was a most elegant lady, distinguished, and received everywhere. She seemed destined to a delightful untroubled existence. Doubtless nothing would have happened, but for the jewels’. This wee paragraph appears on screen, as the film is about to start. The jewels in question are a pair of diamond earrings, a wedding present from her husband Andre, which she sells without his knowledge to cover debts she has accrued due to her lavish spending. When the jeweller informs the General he buys them back and gives them as a farewell gift to his mistress. She travels to Constantinople and relinquishes them to her gambling debts. Its there that the Baron Fabrizio Donati purchases the earrings and at the same time meets Louise, Madame de, and the pair fall dangerously in love. Donati gives them as a present to Louise who then returns to France.  

 

Louise and Andre.

Louise and Donati.

It’s these two pieces of jewellery that form the substance of Max Ophuls love story. To Louise they are a token of her love for Donati, to Andre, the General; they are a token of his possession and power he welds over his wife. But Ophuls is not judgemental, leaving the audience to consider the French countesses   emotional journey along the diseased road that can be love. ‘The camera exists to create a new art – to show what can be seen elsewhere, neither in theatre nor in life’.[1] Ophuls statement could not be truer than in Madame de… (1953) his penultimate film before his death in 1957, one in which he directing his polished cast with the hand of a master. The bond between him and his actors is so obvious especially with Danielle Darrieux, the heart of the film, who plays the frivolous Parisian woman to perfection, Charles Boyer is every inch the 19^th century French General with Vittorio De Sica portraying the suave international Diplomat. Its also pretty obvious that Christain Matras camera work is in love with the actors, when the couple dance, your on the dance floor breathing down their sophisticated necks, but what makes it even more interesting is that Matras does not rely on the obvious shot and his framing is absolutely exceptional enticing us, the audience, in as though we are scrutinising a painting. The whole shoot flows and ebbs like a Strauss Waltz with the director appreciating that music plays such great part in this adaptation from Louise Leveque de Vilmorin’s period novel. Recently released on a flawless new print that emphasises what a true cinematic classic Max Ophuls penultimate film actually is.

 

Danielle Darrieux with her co stars.

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[1] Max Ophuls