Loretta Young as a sleepwalker?! The theme of sleepwalking and split personality has already been raised in the cinema a huge number of times, but the movie film Richard Sale 'Half Angel' (1951) is probably one of those rare cases, when this topic was decided to consider in such, at first glance, an inappropriate genre for her, as comedy
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Primary nurse Nora Gilpin (Loretta Young) hates the famous lawyer John Raymond (Joseph Cotten), being in the belief that his charitable activities in relation to the hospital where she works, serve his selfish purposes.
But the nurse also turns out to be a sleepwalker and every night, being in the corresponding sleepy state, comes home to the lawyer and seduces him. John falls in love with the nurse, but when he meets her in the morning, of course, she does not remember anything about her nightly adventures and denies that there was anything between them. . .
An interesting idea to shoot a comedy on the theme of “lunaticism” was eventually realized, but, far from being fully realized. For example, the script written by Robert Riskin and George Carlton Brown gives a very vague explanation of the origins of the main character’s disease. A final denouement completely does not give an unambiguous answer to the question - "Is the main character cured or not?" Of course, you can ask a lot of questions about the plot, but I don’t think it makes sense to do that in this case.
The cast of the film, to some extent, smooths out the flaws of the script. Despite the fact that the role performed by 38-year-old Loretta Young is more suitable for an actress who is 10 younger by age (for example, Jean Tierney or Deborah Kerr ), Young perfectly copes with both hypostases of her character. The actress is convincing both as a "primary old maid" in the usual state, and as a "seductive femme fatale" in a state of sleepwalking.
Unfortunately, Joseph Cotten as a lawyer, whom the main character loves and hates, does not look so interesting. Of course, in the roles of 'dark villains' ('Shadow of Doubt'), policemen ('Gaslight') or in the films of Orson Welles this actor was in his place, but in the typical romantic comedy he somehow does not fit - perhaps this is just not his genre, and maybe he is not enough for playing such a film /b>
The musical accompaniment of the production is quite pleasant and disposing. The picture is shot in color, although some colors in the frame seem too bright, and others, on the contrary, too faded - however, it hardly made sense to use color film for this film due to the fact that there is something bright in terms of camera work or special effects here - just not the genre. Richard Sale's directing is quite smooth, without much roughness.
In general, we have a film, the creators of which could not fully implement an interesting idea, but as a picture designed to raise the mood, the production of Richard Sale is quite suitable. It is recommended to watch fans of leading actors, playing in the film and fans of old Hollywood films. Thank you very much.
7 out of 10