Amelia and the Angel (1958) User Reviews

Atmospheric early short film from Ken Russell

[Red-Barracuda · 6/10 · 26 October 2014]

Amelia and the Angel is a charming short feature from future infant terrible director Ken Russell. It's a very low budget film with no synchronised sound. Instead, the soundtrack is made up of library music, occasional real sounds and some basic narration. Lack of sound sync is always a bit of a problem in any film but in some ways it adds a layer of dream-like detachment that adds something to the film's atmosphere. Russell also manages to conjure up some interesting imagery throughout the piece.

The story focuses on a little girl called Amelia who, against her teacher's instruction, takes home the angel wings given to her for her school play. They end up hopelessly damaged and she is forced to wander through London looking for a replacement set. By the end she has gained redemption for her act. It's a simple set-up but one that remains interesting throughout. There isn't very much in it that indicates Russell's future direction as a film-maker but it's a nicely ambient little tale all the same.

Experimental effort

[Leofwine_draca · 5/10 · 21 November 2015]

One of the earliest efforts from future notorious director Ken Russell, AMERLIA AND THE ANGEL is a short, sweet effort about a little girl wandering the streets of London, looking for a replacement for her damaged angels's wings. This is an allegoric effort with heady religious overtones, but it's also rather atmospheric, with good use of stock sound on the soundtrack for effect and plenty of effort gone into the cinematography.

It's also rather a slight piece, with virtually zero storytelling and a narrative that plays out in a matter-of-fact way. But the protagonist is likable and Russell manages to evoke drama from the slightest moment. The moody black and white photography brings to mind the German Expressionist movement of some forty years previously.

An English "Le Ballon Rouge"

[JamesHitchcock · 7/10 · 10 February 2023]

"Amelia and the Angel" from 1958 was Ken Russell's second completed film after "Peep Show". The title character, Amelia, is a London schoolgirl who has been cast as an angel in her school play, and loves her costume so much that she cannot resist taking her angel's wings back home with her. Bad move as her mischievous brother ends up trashing them. Amelia is forced to go on a search through the streets of London in search of a new pair, but quickly realises that angelic wings are not the sort of thing one finds lying about at every street corner.

Russell said that the film was influenced by Albert Lamorisse's "Le Ballon Rouge" ("The Red Balloon") which had come out two years earlier, and the similarities between the two films are clear. Both are short, around half an hour in length. Both feature a young child wandering through the streets of a major city, London here, Paris in the earlier film. (In the fifties parents- even those living in big cities- seemed happy to allow quite young children to wander unsupervised through there streets provided that they were home by tea-time, something which would horrify most parents today). And both tell a superficially simple story, yet have what might be called an unexpected spiritual dimension.

In "Le Ballon Rouge" the red balloon which accompanies young Pascal through the streets of Paris, moving as if of its own volition, has been seen as both a symbol of freedom and as a Christian symbol. The ending of that film has been seen as an image of the hope which enables us to rise above our surroundings, as symbolic of political liberation and as an allegory of Christian resurrection. Here young Amelia is rewarded in her quest by a vision of an angel and the restoration of her wings, brought down to her by the artist as if from heaven. OK, if you prefer a prosaic, literal, adult's-eye explanation, she is actually an artist's model dressed as an angel, but that is not how Amelia, still innocent and uncorrupted by prosaic adult literalism, sees her.

The quiet symbolic spirituality of this film, made in black-and-white, is not perhaps what we have come to expect from Russell, whose later offerings were frequently marked by a riotous, gaudy excess. It did, however, have important results for his career. It was seen by Huw Wheldon, editor of the BBC's arts magazine programme "Monitor", who was so impressed that he offered Russell a full-time job. The result was the famous series of arts documentaries which Russell made for the Corporation, thus launching his directing career, and many of these, such as the famous "Elgar", do indeed show a similar quiet sensitivity to that displayed in "Amelia and the Angel". 7/10.

Total genius.

[ouzman-1 · 10/10 · 29 October 2017]

Any budding or aspiring director would have loved to have made this.

This is better than charming, so much more than naive - this is film making. It is genuinely moving and contains artistic imagery that would be hailed as genius, if made by an Italian.

Thank you Ken for producing this delight!

The joy on the girl's face at the end is epic and not a word from her lips!

Not sure what Russell had in mind here

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 29 September 2017]

"Amelia and the Angel" is a British 24-minute live action short film from 1958, so this one will have its 60th anniversary next year and at that age it is of course a black-and-white sound film. It is an early career effort by British writer and director Ken Russell from quite a while before his Oscar nomination. It is basically the story of a young girl and how she manages to turn hopelessness into hopefulness with the help of a friend. Early on, it seems like a pretty normal film, but things take a fantasy turn eventually. However, I was not really sure what Russell had in mind exactly. It is not a kids film, not a family movie, not a drama. It is a bit of all that, but not enough of any of these genres and there's maybe 2-3 more one could make an argument for. I personally found the use of music also over the top here. It clearly took away from the prospect of an atmospheric film. Russell was around the age of 30 when he made this one, but it seems he was still quite far from his best. Even if actress Mercedes Quadros (plays the title character) never appeared in another film before or after this one, I would not really blame her. Script and execution are more crucial in this not becoming a convincing watch. I suggest you watch something else instead.