Pretty Good

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

With "Street Angel," Frank Borzage's romantic drama starring oft-paired Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell, the first phase of my movie project has come to an end.I set out to see every available movie that was nominated in any category at the very first Academy Awards. Gaynor received a Best Actress nomination for her performance in "Street Angel" along with two other films, "Seventh Heaven" and "Sunrise." "Angel" is certainly the weakest of those three. Many of Borzage's dramas were overly sentimental and full of implausible plot developments, but his touch was usually light enough to overcome these tendencies. Not so in this film. The melodrama is ladled on so thick you can barely see the movie through the syrup, and the film takes forever to get around to the resolution the viewer can see coming a mile away."Street Angel" was oddly also nominated at the following year's Academy Awards in the categories of Art Direction (Harry Oliver) and Cinematography (Ernest Palmer). Eligibility rules must have been looser back then.Grade: C

In 1928 Fox tried the impossible, they wanted to make a film that echoed the prestige of "Sunrise" with the commercial success of "Seventh Heaven" and they almost pulled it off with "Street Angel". The film reunited Janet Gaynor with her "Seventh Heaven" co-star Charles Farrell and it was a huge success. Fox, more than any other studio, embraced the expressionism of the German UFA studios and for the first 15 minutes of "Street Angel" there was a concentration of ten years of the best German techniques - fantastic sets, symbolic and geometric grouping of people, a mobile camera and amazing lighting. It was almost impossible to maintain that high artistic level but it did return for the closing reel. In between the story was rambling but it was saved by the freshness and enthusiasm of it's two stars.With the constant musical love theme, "Angela Mia", played continuously throughout the movie, the story is set in Naples, as Angela (sweet Janet Gaynor), desperate for money for medicine for her ailing mother, tries her hand at soliciting - she has seen how easy it is for other girls but men just don't seem interested in her. In desperation she steals, for which she is bought before a magistrate and sent to the local workhouse for a year. She escapes and a chase through almost surrealistic streets sees her helped by a traveling carnival.One day she meets handsome Gino (Charles Farrell), he is a painter and his funny antics are drawing the crowds away from the circus!!! It is love at first sight - for Gino!! Angela hates men and says she will never love - silly Angela!! Being in a circus is a nice change of pace for Janet who gets to wear lots of spangley tutus and to show off her fetching figure, but all too soon the light hearted days are over. Angela falls off a pair of stilts, breaks her ankle and Gino takes her to Naples to seek medical assistance. They settle down to a blissful yet poor existense, always one step ahead of being evicted but a local gendarme observes Angela and tries to remember....The last part of the movie returns to the moody and atmospheric seediness of the film's beginning. Angela is taken back to the workhouse but is happy because she is convinced Gino will do great things. Oddly enough, she doesn't tell Gino where she is going, only requesting the policeman to let her have an hour with Gino who is celebrating his Mural commission!!! But Gino is not doing well, he is suffering depression, has lost his job and is drifting into the life of a barfly.The last ten minutes or so are magnificently stylized as Gino wanders along the waterfront looking for a girl to paint - one with the face of an angel whose soul he can show as being as black as night. Of course he finds his Angela and within a few moments all his dark thoughts are dispersed as they embrace at a church altar. Even though the story bordered on pretentious Frank Borzage showed why he was the master of romance in Hollywood.

This one has the strengths and weaknesses of the late silent films. It is not as good as 'Sunrise,' but it has some wonderful b/w deep field shots, with a distant town down a mountainside and a busy harbor for a background. Also -- some fine Monet-like fogbound portside shots with the characters walking in silhouette toward each other. Some of the scenes are too long and too sentimental -- to show off Janet Gaynor's skill at pathos, and the theme music and whistling is badly overused. But the portrait, which becomes "Madonnaized" as an old master does capture Gaynor's pure character. It is taken from the lovers as her purity is (for the time being) stolen from her, but then in the final scene the image and reality are reunited. In a sense the Madonna blesses the two reunited lovers. That's well done and is reminiscent of the use of portraits in Poe's "Oval Portrait" and Wilde's "Picture of Doran Grey." I wonder how the young artist realized that it was his picture or, if he did, registered no surprise at finding it over the altar of a church. But the use of the picture as a kind of psychic energy was carried through nicely.

There is a lot to like about "Street Angel" but unfortunately the ending is so sentimental and schmaltzy that I definitely consider it a lesser film for Janet Gaynor. Now 1927-1928 was an amazing time for Gaynor--she was the top actress in Hollywood--having received an Oscar for Best Actress. Oddly, in those days you could receive an Oscar for a collection of performances that year. Gaynor was being honored for "Sunrise", "Seventh Heaven" and "Street Angel"--and the least of these, clearly, is "Street Angel". While it also features amazing cinematography that makes Gaynor seem luminous, it just doesn't rise to the same level as the other two films. Worth seeing? Sure...just understand that the end will probably frustrate you.The film, in many ways, is like a reworking of "Les Misérables" and combining it with a romance. The film begins with dirt-poor Gaynor in a dilemma--her mother will die unless she gets her medicine. However, because they have no money, Gaynor must either let the old lady die or somehow earn some money...fast. When she sees prostitutes walking the streets outside their apartment, she decides to give it a try. But, she looks so innocent and non-sexy that no one is interested. Finally, in desperation, she steals a few coins. She is caught and sentenced to a year in jail for prostitution (though there were no takers) and theft. She manages to rather easily escape and establishes a new life with a swell fellow (her perennial co-star Charles Farrell). But, she's afraid to tell this bohemian artist about her arrest, as he envisions her as the essence of purity. For a while, things are great but eventually the law catches up to her and she is imprisoned. Farrell decides she isn't the woman he thought she was and starts up life without her. So far all this is quite moving and exceptional.How all this eventually ends is sweet but very, very heavy-handed and silly. This is odd since the film in some ways is very open in discussing prostitution and is a rather adult film--making it seem very modern. But, at the same time, the ending is so corny and old fashioned it seems like a bizarre blend of the old and the new. Worth seeing, of course, but NOT until you've seen "Sunrise" and "Seventh Heaven".By the way, the version I saw on DVD was not from the Fox box set (which tends to have excellent prints) but from a minor distributor. As a result, the print was occasionally rough and could have used further restoration.