Robert Mitchum made a career out of playing characters that dominated the screen. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him turn his head to look at anything. When Mitchum turns to look at you, his whole body turns. And you’d better be ready for what happens next, because good or bad, you aren’t going to escape it.
And yet for all that implied control, a Mitchum character was often placed in a situation where he knows that no matter what he does, his fate is not his own and things are going to end up with him dead. Or worse - he might actually end up with that crazy women that he’s run off with.
Faith Domergue (Where Danger Lives) and Jean Simmons (Angel Face)
Where Danger Lives and Angel Face are both about the dangers of falling for crazy women.
In 1948, Mitchum was the victim of a sting operation and busted for possession marijuana (later overturned). The skittish management reintroduced him to movie goers as the good guy in the relatively upbeat Christmas movie, Holiday Affair (1949), playing a war veteran who gets involved with war widow, Janet Leigh. Although Mitchum is never anything but gracious and accommodating in Holiday Affair, such is his presence that you are never quite sure where the film is going to end up. Will he get the girl or will there be a pile of dead bodies under the Christmas tree this year?
Mitchum’s next movie was a move back into film noir with Where Danger Lives (1950) directed by John Farrow and starring Faith Domergue, with small, but critical appearances by Claude Raines and Maureen O’Sullivan. Shot by Nicholas Musuraca, who had photographed Mitchum in Out of the Past and the best of the Val Lewton RKO productions (i.e., the Jacques Tourneur directed, The Cat People (1942)), the film never looks anything less than gorgeous, with Muscuraca’s compositions and lighting effects driving the movie forward as much as Farrow’s direction.
Robert Mithcum, Claude Raines & Faith Domergue
The plot of Where Danger Lives is simple. Dr. Jeff Cameron (Mitchum) falls for an enigmatic attempted suicide Margo (Domergue) and dumps his faithful girlfriend (O’Sullivan) to pursue her. In a drunken confrontation with her very rich, supposed father (Raines), Mitchum suffers a concussion. Raines dies and with Jeff in a fog from the concussion, Margo grabs him and makes a run for the Mexican border. But just before he died, Raines had tried to warn Jeff of Margo’s dark secret. I wonder what that secret might have been?
Jeff just wants to call the police, but in his dazed condition he is can’t stop Margo’s desperate need to escape. On the run, the pair keeps falling prey to their own suspicions of being discovered when – at least initially - the authorities are actually unaware of what’s happened to Raines. At one point they are captured and arrested – for not having beards when their car breaks down during a small town celebration! In an effort to talk their way out of their troubles, they’re forced to get married by the intoxicated crowd as the only way to avoid revealing who they are. And so it goes until they end up at the Mexican border. There the truth comes out as a half paralyzed, bullet-ridden Jeff hears Margo proclaim, “nobody ever pities me!” As great an exit scene as any femme fatale has ever made.
No way out for Faith Domergue In Where Danger Lives
Mitchum rehashed almost the same exact plot two years later in Angel Face (1952) directed by Otto Preminger and starring Jean Simmons in the femme fatale role. Both films start with an ambulance taking Mitchum to the medical aid of someone (Simmon’s stepmom in Angel Face) only to dump his girlfriend when he falls in lust with the young daughter/wife of a much older rich man. When that man ends up dead, the lovers struggle to avoid murder convictions and in the process end up married. And then things get worse.
Where Dangers Lives is a better film than Angel Face, although the latter has a much higher critical rating. Where Dangers Lives is a more satisfying movie with a polished, tightly written story. Each scene rackets up the tension as Jeff and Margo’s options exponentially diminish into a claustrophobic finale between a half dead Jeff and a mostly insane Margo. It was written by Charles Bennett who also wrote the screenplays for Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps and Foreign Correspondent, and who later joined The Cat People team of Jacques Tourneur and Nick Musuraca to write the classic British horror film, Night of the Demon. Although Domergue is not in Simmons league as an actress, she gives a compelling performance at the film’s climax where she becomes completely unhinged in one extended, single shot sequence.
Mitchum falls for Simmons' angel face
Angel Face, by comparison, has a stop/start quality to it that makes its 69 minute running time seem 20 minutes too long. It succeeds on the strength of Mitchum and Simmons’ chemistry, and her riveting face that demands the viewer’s attention as much as Domergue’s playmate figure. In the end, however, Angel Face scores more points where it really counts; it has a once seen, never to be forgotten ending. Having watched Angel Face before Where Danger Lives, my shouted advice to Jeff was to not get in the car with Margo!
Notably, both actresses were involved with legendary billionaire, Howard Hughes, who had gained control of RKO studios in 1948. Hughes hooked up with Faith when she was just 17, buying her parents a house to keep them at arm’s length. But she eventually broke off with him when she discovered that he was also bedding Lana Turner, Ava Gardner and Rita Hayworth at the same time. She went on to star in a number of cult classics including Cult of the Cobra, This Island Earth and The Atomic Man (all 1955). She gives a credible performance as a Doctor of Invertebrate Zoology in Ray Harryhausen’s It Came from Beneath the Sea (also 1955) where at one point she uses a laboratory flask to replicate Veronica Lakes’ code-defying hairbrush scene in Sullivan’s Travels (1942).
Jean Simmons also had her problems (contractual rather than personal) with Hughes. Apparently Angel Face needed to be made quickly as Simmons RKO contract was set to expire within 18 days of the start of production. Hughes’ instructions to Preminger were to make the shoot as difficult as possible for Simmons. You can see from her short bangs that Simmons had cut off her hair is an effort to dissuade Hughes from using her in a film and was forced to wear a wig during production.
Character Actors of Note in Angel Face: Watch for Gertrude Astor as the prison matron. She had a long career in silent films, with a large part as Cecily in Paul Leni’s genre defining The Cat and The Canary (1927). Also, the ubiquitous and wonderful Teresa Harris as a nurse at Simmons jailhouse bed side (above). Don’t blink or you will miss both!
Are Where Danger Lives and Angel Face Worth My Time? Yes to both. Although Where Danger Lives tells its story better, both films are solid B+ efforts. Each film in enlivened by small bits by lots of great character actors.
Availability: Both Angel Face and Where Danger Lives are available from Warner Archives, the latter twinned with Tension (1949)
