Review of The Tarnished Angels

(WARNING - CONTAINS MILD SPOILER) The pylons are pretty striking phallic symbols - which would be a trite observation if not that the movie's highly-strung expressionism encourages it (one admires Sirk not for his subtlety but for his anguished commitment). The overwrought actors - with Stack and Malone almost bursting from their inner tensions and even Hudson transformed into a barely restrained mass of thwarted desire - move among a strangely troubling landscape that contrasts the dusty open spaces of the airfield with a recurrent, psychologically charged use of masks and mirrors and cramped poses in overwhelming settings. When a reveller in a death mask bursts in as Hudson and Malone kiss, it's like their subconscious guilt bursting horribly into the open. Once again, Sirk expertly taps the neuroses of the period, with Stack the ex-war hero neutered and adrift at home: in the opening scene the mechanics torment Stack's son about his supposedly disputed parentage - even though Stack actually is the father; he's so insecure about his love for Malone that he masquerades a swaggering disaffection, even willing to have her prostitute herself: when he goes down, it's like an implosion caused by the sheer weight of it all. A fairly amazing use of melodramatic material, tense with pain and confusion.