I think they meant for this to be a meaningful rumination on the useless postwar wounded, with Barthelmess, David Manners, Johnny Mack Brown, and Elliott Nugent as damaged flyers living useless existences in Paris and Lisbon. All four flit around Helen Chandler, a flighty heiress who talks in non sequiturs and has more shoes in her closet than Imelda Marcos. It has the tone of "The Last Time I Saw Paris" or "A Farewell to Arms." But it's shallow. This quartet seems to spend all its time flirting and drinking, and the talk's all small and doesn't go anywhere. Motivations are picked up and dropped; Barthelmess, furious at Chandler for no discernible reason, escapes to Portugal, then, as she follows him, he's suddenly delighted. Barthelmess does have the right kind of gravitas for this kind of part, and I always liked the gentlemanly David Manners, here a brooding playboy whose eye tic ruins his life. But it's very haphazardly put together. Helen Chandler can only end up with one doughboy, so three of the four are dispatched quickly and randomly before the fadeout. All the actors do their best, but they haven't much to play.
Review of The Last Flight
