Angel, Angel, Down We Go (1969)

A Brilliant Conflict

n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Of all the films I know from the period, by no means all of them, Angel, Angel Down We Go is surpassed in the annals of 60's camp only be Joseph Losey's Boom! and Modesty Blaise ( I have high hopes for The Angry Breed. ) Robert Thom's visual style is occasionally inspired but no match for Losey's tailgunning assaults on the retina. But he compensates with his words -- he is the Shakespeare of AIP. "Fat girls are the remembrance of things past." Can we not admit, in the age of the skeleton girls and bobbleheads, that this is at least as prophetic as the words of Elijah?Casual viewers may mistake this kind of movie as the work of indulgent, drugged-out weirdos but, sad to say, the real Hollywood reptilians make stuff like Love Story and Mission: Impossible III. Let's not forget that Bob Crane once starred in Disney films. It pains me to disappoint connoisseurs of what was once called trash, but there is always a moral component to the most outrageous camp classic. Beauty is truth and truth beauty. Valley of the Dolls ends with a parody of Ingrid Bergman in Stromboli, where Neely O'Hara is reduced to nothing and screaming for God, until she rebels and begins howling her own name! Showgirls of course is devoted to the most microscopic investigation of modern man's nostalgie de la boue. The remake of The Stepford Wives outdoes Von Trier by telling of women who perpetuate their own slavery by creating robot husbands to keep them in an idle luxury they never really wanted to give up. Almost every film by Takashi Miike is an illustration of my theory -- mocking the people who believe in a sort of "extreme cinema" divorced from spiritual context.Likewise, Thom tells it like it is -- the world he sees is a slaughterhouse draped in the latest fashions. But he is also on an apostolic mission. Out of this muck, one soul is restored to its original innocence: Jennifer Jones. Those who know anything about her tortured history will understand that this film is less a paycheck for her than a bizarre form of penance. This is a woman who, after leaving Robert Walker for David Selznick, and becoming Hollywood's most classic example of bartering her soul for fame, seems to have been a walking magnet for extreme wealth, almost as if she were being taunted. Can you imagine what it meant for her, in a fictional context at least, to trade in all her jewelry for cotton candy? Which she throws away without eating? This scene proves to the cosmos that her heart was always shielded from the lie of existence. And you can't fail to notice that this aging star, who has always attracted mystical projects, looks about nine years old in her orange jumpsuit, shortly before leaping to her death -- this scene would be the last of her career. Now you know who the angel of the title is. If you still want to see something sick and "extreme" with the same actress, leave Angel, Angel on the shelf -- for I fear it is actually boring and saintly -- and check out Selznick's wartime propaganda film Since You Went Away. There the resourceful Selznick actually cast Jones opposite Walker and made them reenact their youthful love affair under his merry, twinkling eye.

**Spoiler Alert**I've been watching Jennifer Jones since I was in grade school. I clearly remember the Saturday night I watched "The Song of Bernadette" with my grandmother on television. As a kid in Catholic school, taught by nuns, it left quite an impact. I mention this mostly cause I've had a life-long respect for Jennifer Jones and have made every effort possible to see as many movies of hers as possible. To say I was curious about "Angel, Angel Down We Go" would be the understatement of the year. I appreciate trash as much as the next movie-lover..but this one really tested my patience. Its mean-spirited, its long-winded, its cinematic nonsense. I can't imagine what in the world possessed Jennifer to do this movie cause its, by light years, the worse movie she's ever been involved in. I have a feeling she was having one of her parties and Roddy McDowall and maybe even Lou Rawls was there and someone spiked the punch with acid and they all made a pact to do this movie as a lark. Either that or she lost a bet or owed on the landscaper but there had to have been some unexplicable reason why this movie...maybe Lana Turner was there was said that doing the "The Big Cube" wasn't worse than some of her marriages and so Jennifer figured what the hell, no one will ever see it. A biography I have of hers said she clearly did it for the movie, since AIP was paying stars like Vincent Price a lot for doing the movies he was making for them, and let's face it, you gotta eat..I got a laugh or two. She mentions "Gone with the Wind" and it IS one of the only movies I can think of where the hairdresser, Sydney Guillaroff, is mentioned. But her death scene was just as unpleasant as her death scene in "The Towering Inferno", and its just not bad enough to be good. I forgive you, and I think Showtime Beyond for unearthing it, and I am very glad I got to see it, but obviously it was not a lot of fun for me.Speaking of "The Big Cube"..hey Showtime, how about it?

the review in the "Psychotronic Encyclopedia Of Film" had me looking for this one, for years. Finally found it in 2003, and wouldn't you know, it has ended up on USA cable here a year later. (Showtime Beyond is really exhuming the hard to find AIP stuff regularly) So, what to say. The casting is positively bizarre, with Jennifer Jones, modeling the same outfit she later wore in "Towering Inferno"; Protest singer Holly Near as her troubled fat-girl daughter; Charles Aidman as the rich, secretly gay, father; Jordan Christopher as the freaky rock singer/producer,currently working with his new band "The Rabbit Habit" featuring Lou Rawls (who never sings?), and Roddy McDowell in his freakiest psychedelic film. It starts with Christopher appearing to be a liberating force, but by the end, the drug use/criminal activity leaves no one liberated, and some dead. It's fairly pointless overall, but there are some classic moments to be treasured. Favorite dialogue award goes to Jones, with the classic:"In my heart of hearts, I'm a sexual clam", though Roddy's mini-rant about sexuality, ending with his description of being "turned on" by a carrot comes real close. Hardly classic, but rewarding for the curious! Good companion piece to similar epics from that time, from "LSD, I hate you", on back to "Skidoo", and "Gas-s-s-s, or it may become necessary to destroy the world in order to save it!"

An weird night of moviewatching commenced with this...thing, which popped up on a lesser Showtime channel at four in the morning. (Really, how disparate was the collection of movies I saw last night? In order: Gerry, The Joe Torre Story, Cult Of The Damned, and Ghost Actress. Who needs Hollywood blockbusters to be entertained?)I kept notes during CotD, but, uh, damned if I can codify them into something resembling a review. But I'll try. Prepare for a nonsensical commentary.The movie opens with some hippie-dippy narration not unlike the voiceovers in, say, Radley Metzger's Score. (That's what it reminded me of, at least.) Or maybe CotD was trying to be like Valley Of The Dolls or something. Jeez, my mind's already wandering.The only other movie I knew Jennifer Jones from was The Towering Inferno, and, yes, I agree with another user comment here: She's wearing, like, the same evening gown. Everybody: "We may never love like this again...." Okay, maybe this movie gave me a contact high.The supposed fat girl here leans more toward Hollywood Fat like Bridget Jones, rather than Reality Fat like Tracy Turnblad.The band's first number for some reason echoed early Pink Floyd (their "Piper at the Gates of Dawn"-era). I don't know now if that's true, but that's what occurred to me at the time. This movie wasted no time in making my mind all mushy.Took note of the typical AIP production values: The stilted line readings, wobbly camera-work, slapdash editing, McScore, reliance on the zoom, muffled ADR, cheap Foley, and interest in brutish men and loose women.The dialogue can be so hilariously bad that every other line could be used as a shining example of drug-infused hippie-era screen writing. My favorites:"Your breath stinks. I dig it.""You are a fat girl, idiot! I don't know why anyone would touch you.""Fat girls are the remembrances of things past.""I never really thought of having a profession, but, boy, have I dabbled."Okay, that last one is classic; I'll have to add that to the numerous Showgirls quotes I can't help but slipping into conversation.There was another line that was oddly familiar. One character uses the phrase "polymorphously perverse." Was this a popular way of describing someone back in the day? This is the third time this week I've heard this phrase (Annie Hall was on TCM again, and it was used in American Splendor, which I rented a few days ago), so what's the dealey-o?Should I attempt to summarize the plot? About a half hour in I gave up trying to follow it. I don't think it matters. Digital cable's synopsis identified this movie as a crime drama. There may have been a crime, but I sure don't recall any drama.What was up with the naked guy behind the pool table? Was there some correlation between the nudity and the balls being knocked around? I'm not complaining though; the movie seemed to have a surprisingly healthy interest in the male body and gay men, although the "homo S&M sex = death" scene at the end negated this supposed progressive depiction of alternative sexuality.There's a user comment here that used Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls as a comparison, which was what got me interested in this movie in the first place. Alas, CotD lacked orgiastic pop bliss of the Russ Meyer classic; it instead had the pseudo-serious vibe of something like Psych-Out. Oh well. But this did have one or two things in common with BVD, like references to Naziism. But that's all I can say about that. And the lead guy was all Lance Rocke during a moment on the beach. Again, I don't remember how; at this point I'm just copying my notes.So, back to Jennifer Jones. She had a Joan Collins thing going on for a bit there, but I zoned out through most of her scenes. When I re-engaged myself in the movie in a last-ditch, futile attempt to figure out what the hell was going on, she was pawning her bracelets to buy cotton candy. Which is when I realized either the movie left me behind or vice versa. Was she brainwashed into denouncing materialism? Was that the crime? IS that a crime? Beats me.Hmm. I guess that's about it. If I ever watch this movie again, maybe I should either pay more attention or pack a bowl first.