Fallen Angels (American TV series)

Did You Know?

• In Europe, the show is known as Perfect Crimes and was shown in France on Canal+ and in the United Kingdom.
• Period torch songs by performers like Patti Page and Billie Holiday were used periodically.
• In France, Elephant Classic Films released the complete series as a 3-DVD region 2 set.

Reception

When Fallen Angels first aired, critics were split. Scott Williams of the Associated Press praised it, saying the show succeeded in delivering entertainment about a stylish moral abyss, letting viewers look over the edge and measure their souls against the darkness. The Chicago Sun-Times gave it two out of four stars; Ginny Holbert argued the series was too obsessed with style, producing a contrived, full-color cliche noir full of tilted fedoras, curling cigarette smoke, and harsh light through venetian blinds rather than a genuine 1990s take on film noir. John J. O'Connor of The New York Times called it uneven but diverting, even when it barely reached film-school level. Louis B. Parks of the Houston Chronicle noted that film noir homages often overdo the ingredients and lose the subtlety of the originals, and Fallen Angels had some of that problem, but the directors and actors played it straight and the adaptations from real noir writers were pretty good. Tom Shales of The Washington Post found that creating period pieces seemed easy for Hollywood artisans, and by even high modern standards, the six Fallen Angels films looked transportingly authentic and sensuous, stylized without spoofing the milieu, though they occasionally veered into the arch and ridiculous; overall, they at least looked darn good. David Gates of Newsweek wrote that no other show that summer would better whisk viewers away from the increasingly unacceptable 1990s, and the half-hour episodes were all too short. Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly observed that at their weakest, the films looked like the work of boys dressed up in their dads' big suits, a boys' fantasy production full of happy, naughty cigarette-puffing.