Angels Over Broadway (1940)

A cuckolded embezzler on the verge of suicide is helped by a tout, an alcoholic playwright, and a pick-up girl to reimburse the money with a gambling sting.

Directors:

Ben Hecht, Lee Garmes (co-director)

Writer:

Ben Hecht

Stars:

Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Rita Hayworth, Thomas Mitchell

Nominated for 1 Oscar.

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Douglas Fairbanks Jr.	...	Bill O'Brien
Rita Hayworth	...	Nina Barona
Thomas Mitchell	...	Gene Gibbons
John Qualen	...	Charles Engle
George Watts	...	Hopper
Ralph Theodore	...	Dutch Enright
Eddie Foster	...	Louie Artino
Jack Roper	...	Eddie Burns
Constance Worth	...	Sylvia Marbe

Storyline

Charles Engle has been caught embezzling. He writes a suicide note, and goes out wandering on the town. Small-time hustler Bill O'Brian sees him give a couple of big tips, figures he's rich, and plans to take him over to a big-time card game and fleece him. He enlists Nina Barone to help get Engle to the game. She goes along, but is more interested in O'Brien than in his schemes. Meanwhile, a perpetually drunk and none too successful playwright, Gene Gibbons, finds the suicide note. He cooks up a scheme (with the reluctant aid of O'Brien) to get the money Engle needs to pay back his employer and save his life.

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Plot Keywords:

punch in the face | scheme | suicide note | playwright | embezzler | 

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Taglines:

A Strange and Wonderful Romance...Born Between Heartbreak and Romance!

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Genres:

Adventure | Comedy | Crime | Drama

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Certificate:

Passed

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

2 October 1940 (USA)

Also Known As:

Angeli del peccato

Company Credits

Production Co:

Columbia Pictures Corporation

Technical Specs

Runtime:

79 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Mirrophonic Recording) Mono

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Jean Arthur was offered the role of Nina Barone, but turned it down.

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Goofs

When Gene goes over to his soon to be ex-wife in the club, the ashtray fills up between cuts.

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Quotes

Eugene 'Gene' Gibbons: Put your scissors away, Delilah, my hair's all cut.
[looking at her male escort]
Eugene 'Gene' Gibbons: Is this stylish fellow my successor?
Sylvia Marbe: Gene, you're drunk!
Eugene 'Gene' Gibbons: Darling, you understate the case by three bottles and a thousand tears!
[laughs]
Eugene 'Gene' Gibbons: Avaunt!

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Connections

Referenced in The Fisher King (1991)

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Soundtracks

My Man
(Mon Homme)
Music by Maurice Yvain
French lyrics by Jacques Charles and Albert Willemetz
English lyrics by Channing Pollock

User Reviews

ANGELS OVER Broadway (Ben Hecht and Lee Garmes, 1940) ***

For the most part this unusual, thought-provoking and character-driven moral fable is a fascinating affair but, in spite of the compact running-time, it becomes tiresomely talkative (especially given Hecht's overwritten script). Co-directed by a writer (Hecht made seven films in this multiple capacity, but this is the first one I've watched!) and a cinematographer that were second to none in their respective professions, it's small wonder that the film is brimming with sparkling dialogue (particularly as delivered by Thomas Mitchell, here in his trademark role of philosophical drunk) and inventive shadowy lighting.

The main roles, however, are equally well-filled: Mitchell, as I said, wasn't really stretching himself here but his three co-stars - Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Rita Hayworth and John Qualen - had rarely been offered such an opportunity to shine up to this point. Fairbanks' best-known role had been his 'smiling villain' Rupert of Hentzau in THE PRISONER OF ZENDA (1937; where's that DVD, Warners?) but he had already made other impressive ensemble pieces, such as THE YOUNG IN HEART (1938; see my review elsewhere) and GUNGA DIN (1939); actually, his role here is sort of similar to that of the former - though he's a harder character, an utter heel, but whose scheme of 'taking' a man he believes to be a millionaire rebounds on himself and actually ends up involved in the 'taking' of his 'business partners' to the benefit of the latter (who's really an embezzler on the brink of suicide)! The unwilling crook is played by John Qualen, the great - if largely unsung - diminutive and mild-mannered character actor, whose other notable roles included the murderer in HIS GIRL Friday (1940), a victim of the Oklahoma Dustbowl in THE GRAPES OF WRATH (1940) and "Miser" Stevens in THE DEVIL AND DANIEL WEBSTER (1941). The film's feminine interest, then, is provided by a young Rita Hayworth who, again, exceeds all expectations with her role of a star-struck girl who forsakes her dreams of glory in order to do a good deed (even if she's initially drawn into the 'plot' purely on a whim by Fairbanks); indeed, the characters' individual reformation - more so than in THE YOUNG IN HEART, and done in a much less sentimental manner - adds an undercurrent of spirituality to the film's prominent sophistication and hard-boiled veneer, which is not so surprising coming from Hecht!

For its time, ANGELS OVER Broadway must have seemed like a B-movie with pretensions; while it falters here and there under the strain of its own self-indulgence, because it is unique, the film doesn't feel all that dated today and is bound to give detailed pleasure on every viewing.