I remember passing by Angel's Flight in 1983 when I first moved to L.A., fascinated by a feeling I got about it, and sad that it sat there all closed off, not in use for years apparently. Downtown L.A. was fascinating for me, much like parts of San Francisco and Mahattan would be on later exploration, and as I began to study film noir, the one aspect of that film genre that fascinated me was the location footage used, either real or studio bound, but recognizable as a real site none the less. Whether it be Joan Crawford running up and down the streets of San Francisco in fur and heels, K.T. Stevens on the Brooklyn bound side of the Manhattan Bridge right above East Broadway in Manhattan in "The Port of New York", or Barbara Stanwyck escorting her husband through L.A.'s Union Station in "Double Indemnity", location footage is a fascinating document of how cities remain the same and how the night can lead to murder on those dark and mysterious quiet streets.
"Angel's Flight" is a very low budget thriller about a troubled young woman's past being exposed through her sudden murderous activities, and it takes place mostly in that small area of downtown Los Angeles where a sudden hill changes the look of one of the oldest neighborhoods there. Seedy bars, filled with party girls and perverted men looking for cheap thrills, are always a great setting for film noir, and for pretty blonde waitress Indus Arthur, that seedy bar is a metaphor for the angry abused woman hiding mysteriously inside her that she seems to be unaware of. In the very first seen, she's seen kissing a man, but suddenly brandishes a knife and slices his whole neck. It's the third such murder in the area of Bunker Hill, and while the old lady who rents Arthur a room screams upon seeing it happen, it is obvious that she doesn't recognize her as the killer. Drunken reporter William Thourlby is on the scene to get every scoop he can on this story, and as the mystery grows, more bodies are added to the list of Arthur's victims.
Outside of one sequence in the flatlands of Griffith Park (probably just above Western Ave. off of Los Feliz Blvd., all of this takes place in that little section of downtown L.A. and the atmosphere, whether at day or night, is captured with a viewpoint that screams "seedy". One bar sequence features a very young Rue McLanahan as a boisterous party girl having far too much fun, and it is obvious that she is doing more than just being chatty for free drinks. I've visited a few seedy L.A. bars in my time that seemed to open just as dawn was breaking, and they get the character down perfectly with sad people drinking from morning until passout time, waking up just to start again. Indus Arthur, whose only other major role was as Lee Baldwin's troublesome step-daughter on "General Hospital", is sadly pathetic as her troubled character which makes her mesmerizing, and the actual tram that goes up and down Angel's Flight is so much a part of the story that it virtually becomes a character.
"Angel's Flight" is a very low budget thriller about a troubled young woman's past being exposed through her sudden murderous activities, and it takes place mostly in that small area of downtown Los Angeles where a sudden hill changes the look of one of the oldest neighborhoods there. Seedy bars, filled with party girls and perverted men looking for cheap thrills, are always a great setting for film noir, and for pretty blonde waitress Indus Arthur, that seedy bar is a metaphor for the angry abused woman hiding mysteriously inside her that she seems to be unaware of. In the very first seen, she's seen kissing a man, but suddenly brandishes a knife and slices his whole neck. It's the third such murder in the area of Bunker Hill, and while the old lady who rents Arthur a room screams upon seeing it happen, it is obvious that she doesn't recognize her as the killer. Drunken reporter William Thourlby is on the scene to get every scoop he can on this story, and as the mystery grows, more bodies are added to the list of Arthur's victims.
Outside of one sequence in the flatlands of Griffith Park (probably just above Western Ave. off of Los Feliz Blvd., all of this takes place in that little section of downtown L.A. and the atmosphere, whether at day or night, is captured with a viewpoint that screams "seedy". One bar sequence features a very young Rue McLanahan as a boisterous party girl having far too much fun, and it is obvious that she is doing more than just being chatty for free drinks. I've visited a few seedy L.A. bars in my time that seemed to open just as dawn was breaking, and they get the character down perfectly with sad people drinking from morning until passout time, waking up just to start again. Indus Arthur, whose only other major role was as Lee Baldwin's troublesome step-daughter on "General Hospital", is sadly pathetic as her troubled character which makes her mesmerizing, and the actual tram that goes up and down Angel's Flight is so much a part of the story that it virtually becomes a character.