I’m still feeling the loss of UK home video distribution Network in 2023. After the label’s demise, I snatched up any blurays I could of titles that looked even remotely interesting but which I did not own yet.
This is how I happened upon 1950’s The Angel with the Trumpet. I didn’t bother reading much about it before buying, but I doubt I would have correctly guessed its plot. My best guess would have been it is a biopic about a legendary horn player. My second-best guess would have been: screwball comedy where the ghost of a trumpeter intervenes in somebody’s life.
I don’t think I would have ever suspected this would turn out to be a serious drama about a family which spans several decades. It’s kind of like The Magnificent Ambersons, though not as good. Oh, and if that story took place in Vienna.
The movie almost exclusively follows Eilene Herlie as the matriarch of a wealthy family whose business is piano makers to the royal family. It seems the family’s residence and manufacturing are in the same mansion. In the first shot of the movie, there is a slow push-in on the front door of that building, coasting to a stop on the firm’s symbol: over the door, an angel blaring a trumpet.
The movie starts in the late 19th century, before she has married into the family. Some members of that family express their disappointment to the fiancée (Basil Sydney). One issue they have is because she is Jewish on her father’s side. Another beef they have is they have had a detective tailing her, and it turns out she is friendly with the prince to the throne (Norman Wooland).
There is some debate as to how friendly she is with the prince. Still, that doesn’t prevent the nuptials. The distraught prince commits suicide, news of which interrupts the wedding banquet for Herlie and Sydney.
Let’s fast-forward through some of this. There’s children from the marriage, and one of her sons (John Justin) is level-headed and smitten with a young piano prodigy (Maria Schell). Her other son (Oskar Werner) is lazy and shiftless. There is Herlie’s short-lived dalliance with a friend of the deceased prince (Anthony Bushell).
So there’s all these developments, but none really have any weight to them. I found it curious the performances are solid all-around, but I still never believed these are real people.
One problem may be the brevity. This is a lot of material to cram into a little over 90 minutes, so developments are set up and resolved in a manner that feels like checking off items on a list. Most plot points feel like foregone conclusions, so it isn’t surprising when what happens is exactly what you expected.
This is melodrama that doesn’t have enough build-up to earn any hysterics. And I guess that’s OK, because there really isn’t much here in the way of emotional fireworks.
All of which makes the third act that much more surprising. The movie goes through to WWII. Remember how Herlie is Jewish on one side of the family? No points for guessing that doesn’t bode well for her, regardless of her social position.
It is here the movie doesn’t pull any punches, and I was surprised by how moving some of the moments were near the conclusion. To its benefit, the pace of the film also slows down. One especially effective shot mirrors the one that opened the film, but this time the camera pushes in on the mansion in ruins, with the trumpeting angel barely protruding from the rubble.
The Angel with the Trumpet is not a great film by any stretch of the imagination. I do, however, find it unfortunate how unlikely this is to get reissued now that Network has folded. I’m hoping another boutique label will take on such older and relatively obscure films, to ensure that even these lesser pictures are not forgotten.
Dir: Anthony Bushell
Starring Eileen Herlie, Basil Sydney, Maria Schell
Watched on Network blu-ray (region B)