Robert Mitchum, as chauffeur to a wealthy family, becomes implicated in thecrimes of his mistress Jean Simmons, whose excessive adoration of herfather (Herbert Marshall) leads to murder. In Preminger's hands, thepassionate and unsettling relationships seem not merely underscored butoddly understood; he delineates with compassion the fatalistic mood ofsexual and class obsession. Preminger's films noirs "are moodilyfluid studies in perverse psychology rather than crackling suspensemovies" (Andrew Sarris) and Angel Face's obsessions-Simmons's forher father, Mitchum's for Simmons and her milieu-are expressed in almosttrancelike behavior and mesmeric mise-en-scène that make theending doubly shocking. Jean-Luc Godard, writing in Cahiers duCinéma in 1963, named Angel Face as one of the ten best Americansound films.