Fallen Angel

Fallen Angel is a 1945 American film noir directed by Otto Preminger, with cinematography by Joseph LaShelle, who had also worked with Preminger on Laura a year before. The film features Alice Faye, Dana Andrews, Linda Darnell and Charles Bickford. Fallen Angel was Faye's last film as a major Hollywood star, and she did not appear in another film until State Fair (1962). Plot Eric Stanton, a well-dressed but down-on-his-luck drifter, feigns sleep but gets pulled off a bus in the hamlet of Walton because he does not have the fare to continue to San Francisco. He finds a low-budget diner called "Pop's Eats", where Pop is worried about waitress Stella because she has not shown up for work for days. Ex-New York cop Mark Judd tells him not to worry, and the sultry Stella soon returns. Stanton is attracted to her, but she is unimpressed by his smooth talk. Stanton cons his way into a job with Professor Madley, a traveling fortune teller and spiritualist. He goes to the large house of Clara Mills, daughter of the late mayor, Abraham Mills. The townspeople are unwilling to buy tickets to Madley's "spook meeting" because Clara Mills, an influential local spinster, disapproves. Stanton gets to Clara through her inexperienced younger sister June and persuades them to attend the performance.