Godard famously named Angel Face one of the ten best American sound films of all time, along with The Searchers and Vertigo. As noir as they come, the film’s a clear match for Laura in its perversity, sense of obsession, and hypnotic atmosphere – you won’t have a better time all summer. Jean Simmons, coolly compulsive as Diane, has the face of an angel and the soul of a demon.  She dotes unnaturally on her father (Herbert Marshall), a British novelist remarried to Catherine Tremaine, a rich, martini-swilling bitch who keeps him on a tight leash in her LA mansion. Diane convinces Catherine to hire as family chauffeur ambulance jockey Frank Jessup, played with laconic virility by Robert Mitchum.“It’s a weird outfit, not for me,” Frank says, dismissing the tormented Tremaine clan, but finds himself helplessly ensnared in their hilltop lair.  “I’ve been slapped by dames before,” he drawls after a hysterical Diane repays his smack, igniting a love affair that leads inexorably into romantic obsession, double jeopardy, murder and more murder. One of the most ambiguous femmes fatales in all of noir, Simmons brings masklike intensity to her daddy-fixated gorgon. “My favourite Preminger noir . . . The most enigmatic and haunting of Preminger’s works after Laura” (Jonathan Rosenbaum). Noir expert Eddie Muller counts the film’s ending as one of the top five in the entire genre.

Rated PG.