In 1944, Otto Preminger directed one of the all-time great film noir entries with Laura. He returned to the genre in 1952 via Angel Face.

Ambulance driver Frank Jessup (Robert Mitchum) winds up at a Beverly Hills mansion when wealthy Catherine Tremayne (Barbara O'Neil) suffers from gas poisoning. There he meets Catherine’s 20-year-old stepdaughter Diane (Jean Simmons).

The beautiful young woman pursues Frank and he goes along despite his relationship with girlfriend Mary Wilton (Mona Freeman). This leads Frank down a dangerous path, as lovely Diane may not be as sweet and innocent as she seems.

Well duh. We go into a movie like this with the foreknowledge that Diane will offer a femme fatale, so the question becomes how well the movie executes its plot and characters.

My feeling? Reasonably well, though I can’t claim that Face deserves to be viewed as a classic.

I do appreciate some plot twists, especially via the way it portrays Frank as pretty hard-bitten and suspicious. It seems like films of this sort usually make the male lead a bit of a dope, someone who becomes so smitten by the femme fatale that he can’t think straight.

That doesn’t become the case with Frank, which makes sense given the film’s casting. Mitchum offers much too much of a tough guy for us to swallow him as some love-struck sap.

Really, Frank offers a bit of a cad. He seems fairly unconcerned with Mary’s emotions, and he appears suspicious of Diane from the start.

This makes his inevitable path toward involvement in Diane’s schemes more intriguing. While we know he’ll fall for Diane’s plot eventually – and thus sort of wind up as a standard male dope - Frank’s cynicism ensures that we find his fate more believable.

All of this allows Face to follow a more natural path than many of its peers. The plot emerges in a more intriguing manner than often becomes the case because we don’t constantly roll our eyes at the stupidity of the male lead.

This leads to a level of subtlety unusual for the genre as well. The story rarely takes matters to a narrative extreme, so it evolves in a more natural manner than anticipated, all to its benefit.

Face can drag a bit at times, and as much as I appreciate its somewhat understated vibe, this can become a bit of a drawback. We go into film noir efforts with an expectation of some high theatrics, so its low-key tone leaves it a little flat at times.

Nonetheless, Angel Face turns into a pretty engaging thriller. It doesn’t live up to the highs of Laura, but it nonetheless becomes a solid film.

Angel Face appears in an aspect ratio of approximately 1.37:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. Expect a pretty good presentation.

Sharpness worked fine overall. Some softness cropped up at times but not regularly, so the movie usually seemed well-defined.

Jagged edges and moiré effects remained absent, and I saw no signs of edge haloes or artifacting. With a natural – and non-intrusive – layer of grain on display, I discerned no problematic digital noise reduction, and source flaws weren’t a factor. No print defects materialized.

Blacks were fairly deep and dark, and contrast appeared positive. The movie didn’t boast the most dynamic silver sheen, but that side of things still looked fine.

Shadows offered good clarity. No one will use this transfer as a showpiece but it was fine for its age and sources.

As for the DTS-HD MA monaural soundtrack of Angel Face, it seemed acceptable for its age. Speech could be a little brittle, but the lines were always intelligible and reasonably warm.

Music showed decent to good range and clarity. The score displayed more than adequate vivacity.

Effects sounded decent. This wasn’t a movie that presented much more than general ambience, so the track didn’t have much to do, but these elements were reasonably clean and distinctive.

Source problems weren’t a concern, as the mix lacked distractions. Given the limitations of the original material, I felt this was a more than adequate soundtrack.

In addition to the movie’s trailer, the disc includes an audio commentary from film historian Eddie Muller. He presents a running, screen-specific look at story/characters, genre domains, cast and crew, production domains and his take on the film.

For the most part, Muller presents a nice look at the movie. He loses steam in the flick’s second half but he generally offers a good mix of movie-related facts as well as his view of it and its genre.

While not on a par with the best film noir efforts, Angel Face nonetheless offers a pretty solid genre flick. It follows some unusual paths and becomes engaging and clever. The Blu-ray boasts solid picture, acceptable audio and a commentary. Fans should enjoy this quality movie.