Diagonaldi Very well executed

Boobirt Stylish but barely mediocre overall

Nonureva Really Surprised!

Lumsdal Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

TheLittleSongbird Ernst Lubitsch was an incredibly talented director, who to me rarely made a dud, with his best films even being masterpieces. Even his lesser films are worth a look, even if just once, and better than a lot of directors at their worst.'Angel' is not among his best films, being not in the same league as 'The Merry Widow', 'Ninotchka', Heaven Can Wait', 'The Shop Around the Corner' and especially 'Trouble in Paradise'. It is however, for all its imperfections, one of his more overlooked films. Some may say 'Angel' is a gem, others may say it's a rare dud. To me, it's neither but is much better than its reputation suggests.By all means it could have been better. It does lag in places, not helped by a story being a bit thin for the running time, with some of the romantic melodrama laid on too thickly at times. Herbert Marshall, who is more capable of giving a good performance but has also given some dull ones, is rather somnolent in his role. A few of the secondary roles are underwritten, Edward Everett Horton while still being very funny in particular is under-utilised.With those being said, while just lacking the famous "Lubitsch touch", being on subdued form and lacking the risqué edge, Lubitsch does direct with his customary class and subtlety. He also has some beautiful visual touches, in a lovingly photographed and designed film that clearly loves Marlene Dietrich, judging by now positively luminous she looks.Music is appropriately whimsical in places while also sweeping without being overbearing. The script does have some sparkling humour in the supporting roles and typically sophisticated with a warm charm. The story is less than perfect but has some fun and charming moments.Dietrich is as aforementioned luminous, has a class and elegance and gives her character good comic timing and pathos. In the supporting roles, Horton and Ernest Cossart are particularly entertaining with their back and forth standing out of the comedy.In conclusion, could have been better but overlooked. 7/10 Bethany Cox

bkoganbing Looking at the criticisms so far voiced about Angel, the majority seems to feel it's a neglected Lubitsch masterpiece. Yet this was the film that caused Paramount and Marlene Dietrich to come to a parting of the ways. Marlene would not be back on the screen until she signed a new contract with Universal and made a comeback of sorts in something that would have been unthinkable for her in 1937. That film was a western, but the western was Destry Rides Again.Ernest Lubitsch and Marlene Dietrich hit a double dry spell in Angel. The sum and substance of it is that up and coming young British diplomat Melvyn Douglas meets a mysterious and alluring woman at Laura Hope Crews's palace in Paris who he falls hopelessly for. But the alluring as ever Marlene is merely the very bored wife of a senior diplomat who is a member of the nobility, Herbert Marshall. It also turns out that Douglas and Marshall are old army buddies.Somehow Lubitsch could not work his usual magic with Marlene. Her scenes with the two men seem to have no spark to them. In fact the ending is a bit of a shock, personally I think she made the wrong choice.Where Lubitsch did well in Angel was with the supporting players. Laura Hope Crews is quite a bit different as the worldly countess than as that pillar of southern society Aunt Pittypat Hamilton from Gone With The Wind. Some of the back and forth commentary between Marshall's butler Ernest Cossart and his valet Edward Everett Horton are also quite droll. What snobs those servants can be, much worse than the people who employ them.Sad to say Angel is a film with a lot of gloss, but no real substance behind it.

danland2 Wonderful Lubitsch comedy about a distracted husband, a neglected wife and an ardent suitor that has all the magic, humor, romance of the directors previous work. Dazzling camera work by Charles Lang make Deitrich look positively luminous. All the cast are perfect. The audience I saw this with at the LACMA Museum screening were utterly entranced by this neglected masterwork. Kudos to UCLA for restoring this treasure to its original splendor and to LACMA programer Ian Birnie for giving us the opportunity to see this little gem in all its glory. A 10 out of 10.........

sandy-32 Given the talent involved -- Dietrich at the height of her allure, Melvyn Douglas (who proved such a wonderful foil to Garbo just two years later in "Ninotchka"), support from such able troupers as Edward Everett Horton and Laura Hope Crews, and above all the famed "touch" of Lubitsch -- "Angel" should be a sparkling romp, a melancholy romance of renunuciation, a worldly social comedy, or better yet, all three.Instead it's a mostly tiresome slog through familiar territory, as if all involved were inspired not by Dietrich or Lubitsch but by the stolid Herbert Marshall as Marlene's aristo-Brit husband.While several recent writers on both Dietrich and Lubitsch have tried to tout this as an undeservingly overlooked film, it's really most worth watching for Crew's pre-Pittypat turn as a Russian emigre-turned-nightclub-hostess, and her few brief scenes can hardly save the picture.Dietrich fans are better off hunting up stills -- she does look terrific in the wardrobe of English Gentlewoman tweeds and furs, and her legendary collection of emeralds were rarely shown to better advantage.