My review was written in April 1984 after viewing the movie on Embassy video cassette.
"Angela" is a competently-made but uninvolving melodrama shot in Montreal at the end of 1976. Reviewed here for the record as it finally appears in the home video market, domestically unreleased film had foreign playdates only.
Production history was a troubled one, with directors Benjamin Manaster and Sidney J. Furie replaced and the late Boris Sagal taking over. As with other tax shelter-financed entries during the Canadian production boom, pic is copyrighted by a financial institution, the Montreal Trust Co.
Prolog is set during the Korean War, with Angela Kincaid (Sophia Loren) giving birth to a child while her husband Ben (John Vernon) is off fighting. Upon his return, Ben accuses her of promiscuity, does not believe the kid is his and then ends up in jail on a long stretch after Angela finks on him concerning a gun-running caper for local gangster Hogan (John Huston).
Shifting 20-plus years ahead to 1976 (with Loren and several other cast members not aging at all), Angela is a successful restaurant manager who falls in love with a young man, Jean Labrecque (Steve Railsback), who is actually her son, whom she had given up for dead, kidnapped as an infant by Hogan and given to foster parents.
Melodrama pays off with a vengeful husband Ben released from prison gunning for Angela plus Angela's inevitable realization that she has unwittingly been engaged in incestuous relations.
Atmospherically filmed, picture is unfortunately flat and suffers emotionally from an unsatisfying ending. General format, including a fine, melancholy Henry Mancini musical score, realls the surprise 1976 hit, "The Sailor Who Feel from Grace with the Sea"; a sexually repressed mature (but beautiful) woman letting go in a torrid affair.
Unfortunately, though the handsome Sophia Loren is well-cast, film's erotic content is nil and would qualify for roughly a PG rating if submitted for same.
Performing is rather low-key, with Steve Railsback playing the son's part as so friendly and pleasant that the character comes off as mentally challenged. Guest star John Huston is effective in a tailor-made role of the local gangster, playing checkers all day with his black henchman at a cafe, and carrying obvious mythological overtones as he carelessly determines the destinies of the other characters.
