Set in the 1930s Depression era during Mardi Gras in New Orleans, The Tarnished Angels covers three days in the lives of a trio of flying-circus performers, headlined by former WWI fighter-pilot hero Roger Shumann (Robert Stack) and his beautiful blonde wife, Laverne (Dorothy Malone). Romantic complications arise when newspaper reporter Burke Devlin (Rock Hudson) falls in love with Laverne while covering their daredevil aerial show. Based on the William Faulkner novel Pylon, this screen adaptation was a personal favorite of director Douglas Sirk's and is considered by many to be a masterpiece equal to his Academy Award-winning Written on the Wind (1956), which also starred Hudson, Malone and Stack in the key roles.