Street Angel
Jan 30, 2012
(Frank Borzage, 1928, USA, 35mm, 102 min)
At the Paramount Theatre
Street Angel is a 1928 silent film about a spirited young woman, played by the beautiful Janet Gaynor. This is a beautiful and charming film with a romantic depth that could never be equaled today. Angela (Gaynor) finds herself destitute and on the streets before joining a traveling carnival, where she meets a vagabond painter. Set in Naples, Italy, lushly painted backdrops blend with lovely sets; a young Italian girl on the run from the police captures the heart of a handsome and passionate artist. When she’s caught and sent to prison, he is left only with the portrait he painted of her—and the hope they will be together again. Once again, as in Seventh Heaven, Charles Farrell and Janet Gaynor is a match made in film heaven. The magic between director Borzage and star Gaynor picks up where it left off, from the film Seventh Heaven, she the extension of the artist, the brush with which he paints his masterpiece. Street Angel is most definitely one of the great films of the silent era, its sentiment and message is as lovely and heartfelt upon viewing it today as it was when it was new. For her terrific performance, Gaynor received the very first Best Actress Oscar.
This was one of three movies for which Gaynor received an Academy Award in 1929; the others were Sunrise and Seventh Heaven. Street Angel was also nominated for Best Art Direction and Best Cinematography. The acting award was given in 1929 and the other two in 1930, which accords the movie the distinction of being the only film to ever receive an Oscar nomination in two different years that was not a foreign language film.