In the 1950s, the rise of television threatened the prominence of film as the number one entertainment source. In order to woo audiences back to the theater, Hollywood ushered in new technologies you couldn’t find in your home, such as air conditioning, Smell-o-rama (because don’t you want to smell the movie you’re watching?) and 3D. The invention of Cinemascope optimized the theater’s capacity for large vistas. With a new widescreen format that almost doubled film’s standard aspect ratio, it was a statement against television’s intimate “smallness.” The advent of color film stock coupled with Cinemascope was a spectacle to behold. Making color Cinemascope films was expensive and the investment signalled to audiences a quality film. In fact, at some studios the Cinemascope branding wasn’t used for B-movies — instead using the name RegalScope — in order not to taint the association between Cinemascope and prestige.
It seems unusual, then, that Douglas Sirk, who is known for his daring use of color would choose to make THE TARNISHED ANGELS a black and white Cinemascope film. Though ‘Scope, as it was called, was an exciting technological innovation, some filmmakers were reticent to use color to tell important stories. Though color was popular in film, in photography, for example, “art” was purely done in black-and-white — color was garish and incompatible with serious subject matter. Out of artistic integrity, some filmmakers chose to continue working in black-and-white.
It’s fitting that Sirk, who in his after-life has come to represent the conflation of highbrow and lowbrow, would use black-and-white Cinemascope for THE TARNISHED ANGELS, signalling both high art, and lowbrow sensibilities. The film is his bleakest and most cynical. But it is not devoid of the emotional dramatics in the rest of his films. The stripped down aesthetic lets Sirk’s genius storytelling shine through. Instead of bright Technicolor set pieces, he uses the spectrum of whites, blacks, and greys to create a richly textured film.
THE TARNISHED ANGELS was Sirk’s personal favorite film; he said he couldn’t make a better film. He might be right.
— Diana Martinez, Film Streams Education Director
