writers_reign Review of Flight Into Darkness

Flight Into Darkness (1935)

Sometimes The Sky Really Can Be The Limit

[8/10 · 4 January 2013]

My good friend dbdmonteil draws attention to the wide range of Anatole Litvak's directorial CV, which is indeed, impressive, but what he omits to say is that Litvak was also responsible for the dire Hollywood remake (in 1947) of the Prevert-Carne masterpiece Le Jour se leve which, with Henry Fonda (you're kidding, right) in the Jean Gabin role was re-titled The Long Night. Be that as it may Litvak does the business here all right. Working with a hackneyed plot - two fliers, buddies, close, but one is in love with the other's wife and she with him - Litvak transforms it into something of quality and very watchable. In Hollywood the two fliers would have been played by Jimmy Cagney and Pat O'Brien who would wise-crack and one-liner their way to a happy ending; instead Litvak allows it to play out much more realistically and even tragically. Charles Vanel, one of the finest all-round actors in French cinema would go on to make a superior 'flying' picture in Jean Gremillon's La Ciel est a vous and here he leaves the other two corners of the eternal triangle - Jean-Pierre Aumont and Annabella - dead in the water. Three years later Aument and Annabella were the ostensible stars of Carne's Hotel du Nord but once again they were left for dead by Louis Jouvet and Arletty. Nevertheless this is a fine film and recommended.