Elliot Lavine is a noir aficionado, a Stanford lecturer, and former film programmer for the Roxie Cinema.

Cornell Woolrich loved the color black: The Bride Wore Black, Rendezvous in Black, The Black Path of Fear, The Black Curtain, and, of course, The Black Angel. The premise of the novel-a wrongly convicted man is miraculously saved by the sleuthing of a dogged spouse-was a recycled bit of pulp plotting that found its condensation in this booze-drenched B movie. June Vincent, doused with luscious sincerity, plays wife to a philandering hubby accused of bumping off his slice on the side, Mavis Marlowe (Constance Dowling), a sultry shakedown artist. June enlists the help of piano player Marty Blair (Dan Duryea), once Mavis's mate and now a long lost weekend. Liquor looms large in the intoxicating Black Angel as Duryea's alkie retreats to the all-forgiving embrace of the bender. In one delirious recounting of the murder, it's as if we're looking through the bottom of the bottle.