Angel’s Dance

A superbly-directed film which received no theatrical distribution, reportedly, for reasons that are not so hard to fathom when you look at the general run of films. It probably made exhibitors nervous, being so clever and all.

The randomly-selected target of a mob trainee’s hit is a girl who works the graveyard shift at a mortuary sewing up stiffs and painting them with an airbrush. On top of that, she takes Polaroid pictures of her handiwork and frames them for her wall at home.

Under pressure, she learns how to shoot and goes after the kid, whose trainer is the number one hit man in the business and does odd jobs for the CIA on occasion. She really has all the talents required for the position, it’s a question of instincts properly set into motion.

The “dance” and the “way” are terms in the parlance of the trainer, who has the errant kid rake a Zen garden to settle his mind (the main action takes place in Santa Monica).

Corley pays his debts to Huston and Ashby in rapid, unerring shots full of invention.