The Dark Angel **** (1935, Merle Oberon, Fredric March, Herbert Marshall) – Classic Movie Review 5,693

The 1935 American romance film The Dark Angel stars formidable Merle Oberon, Fredric March and Herbert Marshall as childhood friends who come of age in England in World War One. Richard Day won an Oscar for Best Art Direction.

Director Sidney Franklin’s 1935 American romance film The Dark Angel stars the formidable trio of Merle Oberon, Fredric March and Herbert Marshall, and is an Academy Award winner as its production designer Richard Day won an Oscar for Best Art Direction. Oberon was Oscar nominated for Best Actress and sound director Thomas T Moulton was Oscar nominated for Best Sound.

It is produced by Samuel Goldwyn, remaking his own silent film version, and was released by United Artists. Oberon first arrived in England from India in 1928, aged 17, and her film career took off when powerful producer Alexander Korda, er, ‘took an interest’. They married in 1939 and divorced in 1945. He sold ‘shares’ of her contract to producer Samuel Goldwyn and she moved to Hollywood, and her film career really took off. 

Famed author Lillian Hellman co-adapts the old 1925 Guy Bolton tearjerker play The Dark Angel about an officer called Alan Trent (March) who does not want to tell his fiancée Kitty Vane (Oberon) that he has been blinded in action in World War One, instead disappearing in order to convince his fiancée to marry his rival and boss Gerald Shannon (Marshall), who despatched March on his war-wound service action.

There is a touch of class in Lillian Hellman’s intelligently heart-tugging screenplay (written with Mordaunt Shairp). And the stars’ splendid acting is full of conviction and holds the attention grippingly, despite the contrived, mechanical nature of the plotline. March is superb, Oberon is on Oscar-nominated Best Actress form, and Herbert Marshall is his reliably dependable self.

Although the movie is a manipulative, deeply dated piece of work, script, performance and the sensitive direction by Franklin combine to make it still a sentimental joy.

Also in the cast are Janet Beecher, John Halliday, Henrietta Crosman, Frieda Inescort, Claud Allister, George Breakston, Fay Chaldecott, Dennis Chaldecott, Douglas Walton, Sarah Edwards, John Miltern, Olaf Hytten, Lawrence Grant, Ann Fielder, David Torrence, Cora Sue Collins, Jimmy Butler and Jimmy Baxter.

The Dark Angel is directed by Sidney Franklin, runs 110 minutes, is made by Samuel Goldwyn Productions, is released by United Artists. written by Lillian Hellman and Mordaunt Shairp, based on the play by Guy Bolton, is shot by Gregg Toland, is produced by Samuel Goldwyn, is scored by Alfred Newman, and is designed by Richard Day.

Release date: September 8, 1935.

It was previously made by Samuel Goldwyn in 1925 as a silent with Ronald Colman and Vilma Banky, now a lost film.

It is Merle Oberon’s only Oscar nomination. Her other best known films are The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933). The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934, playing Lady Blakeney), Wuthering Heights (1939, as Cathy), That Uncertain Feeling (1941, as Jill Baker), A Song to Remember (1945), and Berlin Express (1948, as Lucienne) and Désirée (1954).

Oberon concealed her parentage and ethnic background, claiming to have been born in Australia to white British parents. She was born Estelle Merle O’Brien Thompson in Bombay, British India, on 19 February 1911, to a white father and a Burgher mother, and raised there. So she is regarded as the first Asian Oscar nominee.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 5,693

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