Street Angel
About Street Angel
In Naples, Angela (Janet Gaynor) cannot pay twenty lire for her mother's medicine. She tries to solicit, fails, and is arrested after snatching coins in a spaghetti café. A court gives her a year in the workhouse. She bolts in a market crowd and hides with Mascetto's circus (Henry Armetta), walking on stilts. The painter Gino (Charles Farrell), who lettered the show's banners, paints her as a Madonna, and the two call to each other by whistling "O Sole Mio." A carabineer recognizes her; she falls from the stilts, serves her term, and finds Gino convinced she was a streetwalker. He chases her into a church, sees his Madonna over the altar, and stops.
Cast & crew
More about Street Angel
William Fox produced Frank Borzage's film. Under the working title Lady Cristilinda, photography was underway at Fox Studios in Hollywood by 6 October 1927, according to a report in the Hollywood Vagabond cited by the AFI Catalog. Harry Oliver designed the sets. Barney Wolf edited. Katherine Hilliker and H. H. Caldwell wrote the titles. Philip Klein, Marion Orth, and Henry Roberts Symonds adapted Monckton Hoffe's play.
Themes
Background
Fox released the film on 9 April 1928, while theaters were still being wired for sound. It played with intertitles plus a Movietone score and effects.
Making
Borzage had already paired Gaynor and Farrell in 7th Heaven. Fox put them back together on Naples sets built in Hollywood, with a Movietone track of music and effects and no spoken dialogue.
Reviews
Film Daily on 15 April 1928 called Street Angel extraordinary and praised the performances, the background photography, and Borzage's direction. The paper's 1929 yearbook later placed it among the top features of 1928.
Look
Ernest Palmer and Paul Ivano shot it. The Naples streets are played in fog, and the workhouse passage uses heavy, exaggerated shadows.
Technique
The release is a synchronized-sound film: intertitles remain, and the music and effects are printed on the film rather than played live.
Music
No dialogue was recorded. Fox supplied a Movietone score and effects. The theme song "Angela Mia (My Angel)" is by Ernö Rapée and Lew Pollack. In the story, Angela and Gino whistle "O Sole Mio."
Preservation
Prints survive, including a copy on Wikimedia Commons. The film entered the public domain in the United States in 2024. The AFI Catalog's 85-minute timing and the 102-minute timing in wider listings do not match.
Notes
- Janet Gaynor's Academy Award for Best Actress, given at the 1929 ceremony, covered this performance together with 7th Heaven and Sunrise.
- Harry Oliver was nominated for art direction and Ernest Palmer for cinematography at the 1930 ceremony, a year after Gaynor's prize.
- The AFI Catalog times the film at 85 minutes. Wikipedia and Wikidata list 102.
- The Fox Theatre in Brooklyn opened with Street Angel on 31 August 1928.
- Guido Trento plays Sergeant Neri. Natalie Kingston plays Lisetta. Alberto Rabagliati, whose name is misspelled Ragabliati on screen, plays a policeman.
- The picture entered the public domain in the United States in 2024.
- Film Daily's yearbook for 1929, as reported in Film Daily on 7 February 1930, named it one of the top features of 1928.
Awards
- Academy Award for Best Actress (Janet Gaynor, 1929), shared with 7th Heaven and Sunrise
Scenes
- Angela tries to solicit, is laughed off, and is arrested over coins on a café counter.
- On stilts in the circus she sees two carabineers and falls.
- Gino sells the Madonna without knowing it will be passed off as an old master.
- In the church he looks up, sees that portrait over the altar, and lets her go.
Influenced by
- Lady Cristilinda by Monckton Hoffe
