I watched (1932) for the first time at the Grand Illusion Cinema the other night, and now I can’t stop thinking about it or the director Ernst Lubitsch. He’s beloved around my house; my husband loves The Shop Around the Corner and my favorite is To Be or Not To Be. (I have a life-long obsession with Jack Benny. At age five I could do two impressions: Mae West and Jack Benny. Yes, I was bullied.) A lot gets bandied about regarding “The Lubitsch Touch” and what that is. For me, it’s where what you don’t see is just as important as what you do.
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Noir City at SIFF – Angel Face
The title of Otto Preminger’s Angel Face (1952) works perfectly in describing the seemingly innocent façade of both its characters and the film itself. This is a great film noir, a story that keeps us guessing even when we think we have everything locked down. There are deeper levels at work here, different layers at play that make this more than your average B-movie. Like the main leads, the film has a fascinating way of pretending to be sweet and pure, but deep below its surface there’s a dark menace that slowly reveals itself, almost without us noticing. The dark themes quietly wrap themselves around us, pulling us into this story of love, anger, and madness. Eventually, we find ourselves inside of the asylum, unaware of how we even arrived there.
