The Last Flight

WOW.... this film is excellent. The best "lost generation" film I've seen... perfectly captures the Hemingway/Fitzgerald feeling of hopelessness after WW I. It also boasts several terrific performances. Richard Barthelmess stars with the fragile Helen Chandler, Johnny Mack Brown, David Manners, Elliott Nugent, and Walter Byron as a group that boozes its way from Paris to Lisbon following the war.

Each has his/her wounds (physical or emotional) as they try to get their balance after the hideous war. Chandler's remark whenever she's confused is "I'll take vanilla." The film is full of wry humor and a deep sadness that is palpable.

Barthelmess is solid as always; Brown and Chandler are nothing short of superb. This is the first American film for German actor/director William Dieterle.

A must see film.

The Last Flight is one of the more unique movies to come out of 1930's Hollywood (possibly in part due to the film being directed by German newcomer to Hollywood, William Dieterle). It didn't hold my attention on first viewing with its surprising plotless structure but the odd nature of the movie made me want to give it another try. The Hemingway like Lost Generation film follows a group of Great War veterans leading a shallow and hopeless existence as they spend their nights drinking and partying in Paris while making no attempt to properly readjust to civilian life ("Well there they go, out to face life, and their whole training was in preparation for death") - A tale which would be repeated throughout cinema with various wars.

The film is entirely driven by the rapport between the characters and the listlessness that covers their lives. Along the way, they met a metaphorical representation of their damaged states in the form of Niki (Helen Chandler). The first scene with this character really confused me on first viewing as it sounds like she's saying she is holding a man's "tea" rather than his "teeth". Why the men would get so excited over this? It's not clear if Nikki is a ditsy dame, constantly inebriated or just nuts. She doesn't mind just standing and holding the teeth of a stranger who wants to go out back and fight and even keeps turtles in a hotel bathroom.

I do love the exquisite Paris nightlife circa 1919 as presented in the film with the suits and the drinks, you really get a sense of the all the good (if pathetic on a deeper level) times they have (even if it's never explained how they fund their drinking adventures). Allow me to express my inner grumpy old man when compared to modern nightlife.

Richard Barthelmess gave some of the most memorable performances of the pre-code era, having the ability to convey the look of a damaged man as seen in the role of Cary Lockwood, the most sensible one of the ecliptic group. Likewise, there's also Frink (Walter Byron) and his sexual misconduct ("He is a member of the wandering hands society and has a grouping good time"), in which the men are shockingly tolerant of his behaviour as they call him out and criticise his actions but never expelling him from the group. Even after an attempted rape on a train the men only tell him to apologise and to never get out of line again.

The Last Flight reuses footage at the beginning from Barthelmess' previous war film, The Dawn Patrol; both are based on stories from John Monk Sanders and make for a great double feature. - The Last Flight is a film for a patient viewer but one which holds many nihilistic rewards.

I came across this unheralded early William Dieterle film a while back and it blew me away. Quite an astonishing film for a 1931. I believe it was Dieterle's first Hollywood outing. It's a "Sun Also Rises"-like story of several ex-WWI American fliers living, relaxing and drinking in Paris and the wacky, free-spirited woman they "adopt" into their group. A truly unusual film--the dialogue is almost entirely in non sequitors which gives it an almost ahead-of-its time feel. The editing and the frenetic energy of it all are spectacular. It offers an accurate and immediate picture of post-war disillusionment of its time, the confused emotional/psychological state of the characters, much the same way Henry King's 1957 "Sun Also Rises" captured 1950s post-WWII mentality.

Dieterle is a talented stylist, and it shows all the way through, using fast-moving and inventive camera work. And it's beautifully photographed in that "German-looking" Expressionism early-1930s style.

The performances are top-notch. Richard Barthelmess is excellent as Cary Lockwood. Helen Chandler is quite distinctive as the leading lady Nikki. And I especially like David Manners in this film. He's one of the forgotten leading men of the 30s. Manners is best known today for his appearances in the Universal horror films, but he made a wide range of films--one of my favorites is his scrupulous secretary in love with a glamorous Kay Francis in Dieterle's other unheralded classic of the early 30s, "Man Wanted."

This early talkie was an exciting experience. The script was charming, the performances intriguing. Author John Monk Saunders managed to combine just the right touch of whimsy with the desperation and hopelessness of post-war life. The story was fascinating, a look at what was to become known as "The Lost Generation," or maybe already was so known by 1931. I hope Turner Classic Movies will show this movie again, and I would like to have a recording. A great cast with an excellent script directed by a master made "The Last Flight" a superb motion picture. I was moved and charmed. And I'm grateful for the chance to have seen it.

Four former flying aces, scarred both physically & emotionally, make THE LAST FLIGHT through the bars of Paris & Lisbon with an eccentric American girl.

Well-crafted & poignant, this film tells the sad tale of American World War One buddies whose lives are essentially over with the cessation of the conflict. Aimless & drifting, but seemingly very well financed, they stagger from bar to bar, looking for the forgetfulness that comes with drunken oblivion. If not for the noble loyalty they feel for each other their story, and the sundering of their quartet, would be almost unremittingly lugubrious.

Director William Dieterle was given fine service by his cast: silent screen star Richard Barthelmess, leader of the band, as a pilot sensitive about his burned hands; gunner David Manners dealing with a nervous tic in his left eye; country boy Johnny Mack Brown letting high jinks and alcohol define his new existence; and sharpshooter Elliott Nugent, shell-shocked into extreme lethargy.

Helen Chandler is remarkable as the highly unusual young woman who is allowed to become an essential part of the fliers' lives. Her kooky vagueness and affection for pet turtles is most endearing. Walter Byron gives an effective performance as a caustic reporter who tags along with the others for his own motives.

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At one point in the story Mr. Barthelmess & Miss Chandler visit the cemetery of Père-Lachaise in Paris, where he tells her something of the history of the tragic lovers Pierre Abélard (1079-1142) and Héloïse (1098-1164), who lie interred there. Barthelmess mentions the terrible revenge visited upon Abélard by the Canon Fulbert, the uncle of Héloïse, without actually saying what it was. Even with Pre-Code liberality, forced castration was not a subject to be broached lightly.