The plot's twists and turns are basically incomprehensible, to the point that by the second half you can't really tell who's in love with which character or who murdered who and where and why. The confusion may be due to the post-production cutting: many of Alice Faye's scenes were apparently cut out in order to put more emphasis on Linda Darnell -- understandable, really, because Darnell is spectacularly sexy in the film and Faye is miscast. But even if the script doesn't always make a lot of sense, Preminger's camerawork is enough to keep the film watchable: whereas Laura had mostly static talking-head shots, Fallen Angel is the start of Preminger's love affair with the moving camera. He pulls off some truly spectacular crane and dolly shots, and complicated long takes that must have taken quite a bit of rehearsal. He also gives us -- albeit in shadow -- what is basically the first tongue-kiss in '40s cinema:
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