By Frank Miller
Angel Baby
Brief Synopsis
Married promoters try to turn a faith healer into a gold mine.
Cast & Crew
Read More
Paul Wendkos
Director
Salome Jens
Jenny Brooks, Angel Baby
George Hamilton
Paul Strand
Mercedes Mccambridge
Sarah Strand
Joan Blondell
Mollie Hays
Henry Jones
Ben Hays
Film Details
Genre
Drama
Adaptation
Release Date
Jan
1961
Premiere Information
Detroit opening: 10 May 1961
Production Company
Madera Productions, Inc.
Distribution Company
Allied Artists
Country
United States
Location
Florida, USA
Screenplay Information
Based on the novel Jenny Angel by Elsie Oakes Barber (New York, 1954).
Technical Specs
Duration
1h 37m
Sound
Stereo
Color
Black and White
Synopsis
Shocked into muteness by a brutal father, young Jenny Brooks tries to escape the loneliness of her life by becoming the town trollop. Then one day a faith-healing preacher named Paul Strand comes to the small southern town where Jenny lives and miraculously restores her power of speech. Deeply moved, she abandons her former ways and joins Paul's troop of touring evangelists. The simple honesty of her faith wins her the friendship of the somewhat alcoholic Mollie and Ben Hays, but the soft beauty of her youth arouses the jealousy of Paul's wife, Sarah, an older, twisted, vindictive woman. After accusing Paul of having adulterous thoughts, Sarah "persuades" Jenny to go out on her own, and, accompanied by Mollie and Ben, the young girl--now billed as Angel Baby, The Preacher of the Ages--begins a tour of the South. An unscrupulous drug manufacturer, Sam Wilcox, becomes her manager and uses the innocence of her spiritual fervor to further his own mercenary ends, even resorting to rigging a phony healing in which the unsuspecting Jenny restores a "blind" man's sight. The night after the "miracle," as hundreds of the ill and maimed wait to be cured, Sarah arrives at the tent, denounces Jenny as a fraud, and exposes the bogus miracle. As the stunned Jenny staggers from her platform, the crowd riots, and in the ensuing melee, Sarah is killed. Paul seeks out Jenny and tries to persuade her to return to preaching. At first she refuses, but when her prayers help a crippled child to walk again, she rediscovers her faith and decides to join Paul in the continuance of his evangelical work.
Director
Paul Wendkos
Director
Cast
Salome Jens
Jenny Brooks, Angel Baby
George Hamilton
Paul Strand
Mercedes Mccambridge
Sarah Strand
Joan Blondell
Mollie Hays
Henry Jones
Ben Hays
Burt Reynolds
Hoke Adams
Roger Clark
Sam Wilcox
Dudley Remus
Otis Finch
Victoria Adams
Ma Brooks
Harry Swoger
Big cripple
Barbara G. Biggart
Farm girl
Davy Biladeau
Little boy
Eddie Firestone
"Blind" man
Crew
Irene Aparicio
Hairstyles
Henry Beau
Orchestration
Orin Borsten
Screenwriter
Stanley Campbell
Makeup
Sidney Clifford
Set Decoration
Hubert Cornfield
Original Director (see note)
Marjorie Corso
Costume Design
Guy Del Russo
Makeup
Dave Kahn
Music Editor
Leonard Katzman
Assistant Director
Richard Kay
Prod Supervisor
Betty J. Lane
Film Editor
Jack Marta
Director of Photography
Paul Mason
Screenwriter
Gale Mcgarry
Hairstyles
Al Overton
Sound mix
Samuel Roeca
Screenwriter
Kay Rose
Sound Editing
Francis Schwartz
Associate Producer
Wayne Shanklin
Music comp & Conductor
Wayne Shanklin
Composer
Val Tamelin
Art Director
George Troast
Set constr
Haskell Wexler
Director of Photography
Thomas F. Woods
Producer
Thomas F. Woods
Company
Videos
Movie Clip
Hosted Intro
Film Details
Genre
Drama
Adaptation
Release Date
Jan
1961
Premiere Information
Detroit opening: 10 May 1961
Production Company
Madera Productions, Inc.
Distribution Company
Allied Artists
Country
United States
Location
Florida, USA
Screenplay Information
Based on the novel Jenny Angel by Elsie Oakes Barber (New York, 1954).
Technical Specs
Duration
1h 37m
Sound
Stereo
Color
Black and White
Articles
Angel Baby -
This ambitious independent film about tent-show preachers wasn't just overshadowed by the bigger budget Elmer Gantry (1960). According to some sources, Angel Baby was held back from release for a year to prevent it from competing with the bigger film. As a result, it has been unjustly forgotten, despite strong performances, brilliant camera work and an intriguing tale of a young mute (Salome Jens) healed by traveling preacher played by George Hamilton. She soon becomes a faith healer in her own right only to be duped by an unscrupulous promoter. Jens is radiant in only her second feature (following an inauspicious debut in 1958's Terror from the Year 5000), while Hamilton shows surprising depth. Best of all are the scene-stealing character performances from Mercedes McCambridge as Hamilton's jealous wife, and Henry Jones and Joan Blondell as reformed drunks working the tent circuit. Burt Reynolds made his film debut as an old boyfriend with less than spiritual designs on Jens. Also early in his career is future Oscar®-winning cinematographer, Haskell Wexler who zipped around the Florida locations on roller skates with a lightweight camera to capture the excitement of the revival circuit.
By Frank Miller
By Frank Miller
Angel Baby -
This ambitious independent film about tent-show preachers wasn't just overshadowed by the bigger budget Elmer Gantry (1960). According to some sources, Angel Baby was held back from release for a year to prevent it from competing with the bigger film. As a result, it has been unjustly forgotten, despite strong performances, brilliant camera work and an intriguing tale of a young mute (Salome Jens) healed by traveling preacher played by George Hamilton. She soon becomes a faith healer in her own right only to be duped by an unscrupulous promoter. Jens is radiant in only her second feature (following an inauspicious debut in 1958's Terror from the Year 5000), while Hamilton shows surprising depth. Best of all are the scene-stealing character performances from Mercedes McCambridge as Hamilton's jealous wife, and Henry Jones and Joan Blondell as reformed drunks working the tent circuit. Burt Reynolds made his film debut as an old boyfriend with less than spiritual designs on Jens. Also early in his career is future Oscar®-winning cinematographer, Haskell Wexler who zipped around the Florida locations on roller skates with a lightweight camera to capture the excitement of the revival circuit.
By Frank Miller
Mercedes McCambridge (1916-2004)
She was born Charlotte Mercedes McCambridge on March 16, 1916, in Joliet, Illinois. After graduation from Mundelein College in Chicago, she acted in local radio, doing everything from children's programs to soap operas. By the early '40s, she relocated to New York, where her powerful voice kept her busy as one of the top radio actresses of her day, including a stint with Orson Wells' radio dramas.
In the late '40s she appeared successfully in several Broadway productions, and this led a call from Hollywood. In her film debut, she was cast as Broderick Crawford's scheming mistress in All the King's Men (1949) and won an Oscar® for her fine performance.
Despite her strong start, McCambridge's film roles would be very sporadic over the years. Her strengths were her husky voice, square build, and forthright personae, not exactly qualities for an ingenue. Instead, McCambridge took interesting parts in some quirky movies: playing a self-righteous church leader opposite Joan Crawford in one of the cinema's great cult Westerns, Nicholas Ray's kinky Johnny Guitar (1954); a key role as Rock Hudson's sister in George Stevens' epic Giant (1956, a second Oscar® nomination), and as a gang leader in Orson Wells' magnificent noir thriller Touch of Evil (1958).
By the '60s, McCambridge's career was hampered by bouts of alcoholism, and apart for her voice work as the demon in William Friedkin's The Exorcist(1973, where the director cruelly omitted her from the credits before the Screen Actors Guild intervened and demanded that she receive proper recognition), the parts she found toward the end of her career were hardly highpoints. Some fairly forgettable films: Thieves (1977), The Concorde - Airport '79 (1979) and guest roles in some routine television shows such as Charlie's Angels and Cagney & Lacey were all she could find before quietly retiring from the screen.
It should be noted that McCambridge finished her career on a high note, when in the early '90s, Neil Simon asked her to play the role of the grandmother in Lost in Yonkers on Broadway. Her return to the New York stage proved to be a great success, and McCambridge would perform the play for a phenomenal 560 performances. They were no surviving family members at the time of her death.
by Michael T. Toole
Mercedes McCambridge (1916-2004)
Veteran character actress Mercedes McCambridge, who won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar® for All the King's Men, and later provided the scary voice of a demon-possessed Linda Blair in The Exorcist, died from natural causes on March 2 in a rest home in San Diego. She was 87.
She was born Charlotte Mercedes McCambridge on March 16, 1916, in Joliet, Illinois. After graduation from Mundelein College in Chicago, she acted in local radio, doing everything from children's programs to soap operas. By the early '40s, she relocated to New York, where her powerful voice kept her busy as one of the top radio actresses of her day, including a stint with Orson Wells' radio dramas.
In the late '40s she appeared successfully in several Broadway productions, and this led a call from Hollywood. In her film debut, she was cast as Broderick Crawford's scheming mistress in All the King's Men (1949) and won an Oscar® for her fine performance.
Despite her strong start, McCambridge's film roles would be very sporadic over the years. Her strengths were her husky voice, square build, and forthright personae, not exactly qualities for an ingenue. Instead, McCambridge took interesting parts in some quirky movies: playing a self-righteous church leader opposite Joan Crawford in one of the cinema's great cult Westerns, Nicholas Ray's kinky Johnny Guitar (1954); a key role as Rock Hudson's sister in George Stevens' epic Giant (1956, a second Oscar® nomination), and as a gang leader in Orson Wells' magnificent noir thriller Touch of Evil (1958).
By the '60s, McCambridge's career was hampered by bouts of alcoholism, and apart for her voice work as the demon in William Friedkin's The Exorcist(1973, where the director cruelly omitted her from the credits before the Screen Actors Guild intervened and demanded that she receive proper recognition), the parts she found toward the end of her career were hardly highpoints. Some fairly forgettable films: Thieves (1977), The Concorde - Airport '79 (1979) and guest roles in some routine television shows such as Charlie's Angels and Cagney & Lacey were all she could find before quietly retiring from the screen.
It should be noted that McCambridge finished her career on a high note, when in the early '90s, Neil Simon asked her to play the role of the grandmother in Lost in Yonkers on Broadway. Her return to the New York stage proved to be a great success, and McCambridge would perform the play for a phenomenal 560 performances. They were no surviving family members at the time of her death.
by Michael T. Toole
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
Location scenes filmed in Florida. Hubert Cornfield, the film's original director, was replaced after a week of filming due to disagreements with the producer; approximately 6 minutes of Cornfield's footage was included in the released film.
Miscellaneous Notes
Released in United States May 12, 1961
Released in United States Spring May 10, 1961
Original director, Hubert Cornfield, was replaced after one week of filming. Six minutes of his footage was included in the film.
Released in United States Spring May 10, 1961
Released in United States May 12, 1961 (Detroit, Michigan)
