We're No Angels | |
---|---|
Directed by | Michael Curtiz |
Screenplay by | Ranald MacDougall |
Based on | La Cuisine Des Anges by Albert Husson |
Produced by | Pat Duggan |
Starring | Humphrey Bogart Aldo Ray Peter Ustinov |
Cinematography | Loyal Griggs |
Edited by | Arthur P. Schmidt |
Music by | Frederick Hollander |
Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 106 minutes |
Country | United States |
Languages | English French |
Box office | $3 million (US/Canada rentals) [1] |
We're No Angels is a 1955 Christmas comedy film directed by Michael Curtiz, starring Humphrey Bogart, Peter Ustinov, Aldo Ray, Joan Bennett, Basil Rathbone, Leo G. Carroll, and Gloria Talbott. Shot in both VistaVision and Technicolor, the film was a Paramount Pictures release.
The screenplay was written by Ranald MacDougall, based on the French play La Cuisine Des Anges by Albert Husson. Husson's play had been adapted into the successful Broadway play My Three Angels by Samuel and Bella Spewack, but the film purported to be based on the Husson original rather than the Spewacks' adaptation. The Spewacks sued Paramount four months after the film was released. [2] As "H.H.T." wrote in the New York Times review of the Curtiz film, "Oddly enough, the new Paramount comedy, We're No Angels, gives sole credit to the Gallic original, then stalks the Spewacks almost scene by scene, without, alas, most of the fun." [3]
Mary Grant designed the film's costumes. [4]
The film is set on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, 1895.
Three convicts – Joseph, Albert and Jules – escape from prison on Devil's Island in French Guiana just before Christmas and arrive at the nearby French colonial town of Cayenne on Christmas Eve. Joseph is a thief; the other two are murderers.
They go to a store managed by Felix Ducotel. The store is in a very poor financial position as it is the only one to give supplies on credit. While there, they notice its roof is leaking, and offer to fix it for nothing. They get involved in selling things in the shop and have a knack for it, selling a brush set to a bald man, and getting the first cash income in a long time. They offer to make Christmas dinner for the family and the meal is very successful.
They do not actually intend to, but decide to remain there until nightfall, when they will steal clothes and supplies and escape on a ship waiting in the harbor. As they wait, they find that the small family of Felix, Amelie, and daughter Isabelle, is in financial distress and offer their services to hide the trio's all-too-sinister ruse. Joseph even gets to work conning people and falsifying records to make the store prosperous. However, the three felons begin to have a change of heart after they fix a delicious Christmas dinner for the Ducotels made mostly of stolen items.
Tensions heighten after store owner Andre Trochard arrives from Paris with his nephew Paul, with a set of crocodile skin luggage. The Trochards plan on taking over the store, which they perceive is unprofitable due to its use of credit. Isabelle had planned to wed Paul but it turns out that Paul is betrothed to another woman, to Isabelle's dismay. Before any action can be taken, Andre gets bitten by Albert's pet viper, Adolphe, and dies. Adolphe disappears and the three have to search for him. Eventually Adolphe is found: Paul is fatally bitten by the snake which was hiding in Andre's pocket, which Paul was searching through.
Isabelle finds another love, and the family is happy as the convicts finally ready for their postponed escape. However, while waiting on the docks for their boat to arrive, the three reconsider. Judging that the outside world is likely to be worse than that of the prison, they decide to turn themselves back in. As they walk toward the boat at film's end, halos appear over their heads...followed by one over Adolphe's cage.
The film gained mixed reviews. Howard Thompson, critic for the New York Times , was underwhelmed, calling it a "shrill, misguided picture" and writing that the filmic version was not on par with the Broadway version. [5] Variety found few faults in the "breezy comedy" but claimed that among its faults was its inability to utilize a more cinematic blocking: "At times proceedings are too consciously cute and stage origin of material still clings since virtually all scenes are interiors with characters constantly entering and exiting." [6]
The Philadelphia Inquirer critic, who had seen the 1953 stage production, was most critical of Humphrey Bogart’s performance: "To say that Humphrey Bogart rattles around in the capacious comedy clothes of Walter Slezak, and that Michael Curtiz misses the outrageous humor of Jose Ferrer’s [stage] direction is putting it gently….Even slowed down to a walk, with Ranald MacDougall’s script no match for the breezy Sam and Bella Spewack adaptation…a certain amount of humor inevitably seeps through as three escaped Devil’s Island convicts play unorthordox guardian angels to the French shopkeeper’s family they originally came to rob. Once the trio comes down from M. Ducotel’s roof and gets to work booming business, plotting the demise of the shop’s nasty actual owner and doctoring the books, things improve noticeably. But there are still long stretches of arid conversation mixed with the genuinely funny moments. And there is still the uneasy spectacle of Bogart desperately trying to be cute as the sole member of the trio without blood on his hands….without a stalwart in this key role, the whole comedy totters. The secondary ‘angels’ are, however, much better, with Peter Ustinov stealing the show…and Aldo Ray doing nicely….Joan Bennett is far from ideal as Madame Ducotel, and Gloria Tabott woefully lacking in the appeal presumably possessed by the lovelorn daughter." [7]
Jack Moffit of The Hollywood Reporter had a favorable review of the film, calling it "a glamorous comedy" full of performances which "are uniformly excellent" and a screenplay which "is worthy of study." [8] Likewise, Lionel Collier of Picturegoer praised it as "a real breakaway comedy – ghoulish humor with a neat sardonic kick." [9]
We're No Angels grossed $3 million in the box office. In 1955, it was the 34th highest-grossing film in the U.S./Canada market. [10]
The opening sequence contains the song "Ma France Bien-Aimée" which borrows the music of Plaisir d'amour. The familiar-sounding tune was also used as the melody in Elvis Presley's hit I Can't Help Falling in Love (1961).
The song "Sentimental Moments" by Friedrich Hollander and Ralph Freed was recorded and released by Eric Clapton for his 2018 Christmas album, "Happy Xmas".
In 1989, Neil Jordan directed a remake of We're No Angels starring Robert De Niro, Sean Penn, and Demi Moore where the escaped convicts are mistaken for a pair of priests at a local monastery in upstate New York. [11]
Humphrey DeForest Bogart, nicknamed Bogie, was an American actor. His performances in classic Hollywood cinema made him an American cultural icon. In 1999, the American Film Institute selected Bogart as the greatest male star of classic American cinema.
Michael Curtiz was a Hungarian-American film director, recognized as one of the most prolific directors in history. He directed classic films from the silent era and numerous others during Hollywood's Golden Age, when the studio system was prevalent.
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William Franklin Holden was an American actor and one of the biggest box-office draws of the 1950s. Holden won the Academy Award for Best Actor for the film Stalag 17 (1953) and the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie for the television miniseries The Blue Knight (1973).
The penal colony of Cayenne, commonly known as Devil's Island, was a French penal colony that operated for 100 years, from 1852 to 1952, and officially closed in 1953, in the Salvation Islands of French Guiana.
Edward Dmytryk was a Canadian-born American film director and editor. He was known for his 1940s noir films and received an Oscar nomination for Best Director for Crossfire (1947). In 1947, he was named as one of the Hollywood Ten, a group of blacklisted film industry professionals who refused to testify to the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in their investigations during the Red Scare of the McCarthy era. They all served time in prison for contempt of Congress. In 1951, Dmytryk testified to the HUAC and named individuals, including Arnold Manoff, whose careers were then destroyed for many years, to rehabilitate his own career. First hired again by independent producer Stanley Kramer in 1952, Dmytryk is likely best known for directing The Caine Mutiny (1954), a critical and commercial success. The second-highest-grossing film of the year, it was nominated for Best Picture and several other awards at the 1955 Oscars. Dmytryk was nominated for a Directors Guild Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures.
Clara Lou "Ann" Sheridan was an American actress and singer. She is best known for her roles in the films San Quentin (1937) with Humphrey Bogart, Angels with Dirty Faces (1938) with James Cagney and Bogart, They Drive by Night (1940) with George Raft and Bogart, City for Conquest (1940) with Cagney and Elia Kazan, The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942) with Bette Davis, Kings Row (1942) with Ronald Reagan, Nora Prentiss (1947), and I Was a Male War Bride (1949) with Cary Grant.
George Raft was an American film actor and dancer identified with portrayals of gangsters in crime melodramas of the 1930s and 1940s. A stylish leading man in dozens of movies, Raft is remembered for his gangster roles in Quick Millions (1931) with Spencer Tracy, Scarface (1932) with Paul Muni, Each Dawn I Die (1939) with James Cagney, Invisible Stripes (1939) with Humphrey Bogart, and Billy Wilder's comedy Some Like It Hot (1959) with Marilyn Monroe and Jack Lemmon; and as a dancer in Bolero (1934) with Carole Lombard and a truck driver in They Drive by Night (1940) with Ann Sheridan, Ida Lupino and Bogart.
To Have and Have Not is a 1944 American romantic war adventure film directed by Howard Hawks, loosely based on Ernest Hemingway's 1937 novel of the same name. It stars Humphrey Bogart, Walter Brennan and Lauren Bacall; it also features Dolores Moran, Hoagy Carmichael, Sheldon Leonard, Dan Seymour, and Marcel Dalio. The plot, centered on the romance between a freelancing fisherman in Martinique and a beautiful American drifter, is complicated by the growing French resistance in Vichy France.
The Desperate Hours is a 1955 film noir starring Humphrey Bogart and Fredric March. It was produced and directed by William Wyler and based on the 1954 novel and 1955 play of the same name, written by Joseph Hayes, which were loosely built on actual events. The film takes place on the Northside of Indianapolis and took great pains to be accurate as to street names and locations within the city and Indiana in general.
Crime School is a 1938 American crime drama film directed by Lewis Seiler and starring the Dead End Kids, Humphrey Bogart and Gale Page. It was produced and distributed by Warner Brothers.
My Three Angels is a comedy play by Samuel and Bella Spewack. The play is based on the French play La Cuisine Des Anges by Albert Husson, and is their only play that is regularly performed in repertory theater.
Bella and Samuel Spewack were a writing team.
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We're No Angels is a 1989 American comedy film directed by Neil Jordan. A remake of the 1955 film of the same title, the film stars Robert De Niro, Sean Penn, and Demi Moore. It received mixed reviews and grossed $10.5 million on a $20 million budget.
Seton Ingersoll Miller was an American screenwriter and producer. During his career, he worked with film directors such as Howard Hawks and Michael Curtiz. Miller received two Oscar nominations and won once for Best Screenplay for the 1941 fantasy romantic comedy film, Here Comes Mr. Jordan, along with Sidney Buchman.
Michael Curtiz (1886–1962) was a Hungarian-born American film director whose career spanned from 1912 to 1961. During this period, he directed 178 films. He began his cinematic career in Hungary, then moved to Austria, and, finally, to the United States. As his biographer, Alan K. Rode, notes, "A cinematic pioneer, Curtiz made a seamless transition from hand-cranking cameras in silent films to directing the first sound feature where the characters spoke their parts. He led the way in two- and three-color Technicolor, directed the first motion-picture produced in VistaVision, and worked extensively in CinemaScope." Rode also notes that "he helmed rousing adventures, westerns, musicals, war movies, romances, historical dramas, horror films, tearjerkers, melodramas, comedies, spectacles, and film noirs".
We're No Angels or We Are No Angels may refer to:
"Plaisir d'amour" is a classical French love song written in 1784 by Jean-Paul-Égide Martini (1741–1816); it took its text from a poem by Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian (1755–1794), which appears in his novel Célestine.
My Three Angels is a 1962 Australian television adaptation which marked the acting debut of champion swimmer Murray Rose.