Night Flight

If you don't like this film you just don't like or understand early 1930s films! This is big budget, state-of-the-art, film making in EVERY department. The aviation footage is stunning. Unfortunately some miniatures were required and are more obvious today than then. But even these are about the best for their time.

What may seem conventional today, these elements were new in 1933. The use of silence - a ticking clock at a dramatic moment. A wonderful score, exceptional photography in the air and on the ground. The texture of rich background characters and extras. Exceptional editing! Death in the air is made so beautiful, romantic and horrifying all at the same time!

It's easy to laugh, but these were the days pilots were ALLOWED to bring alcohol along in the cockpit! This was little understood risky and dangerous work. And not only shown from one perspective. Each character has his own.

Reviews at the time noted all I've said and the public appreciated this and ate it up!

So if you can rise above your modern day aesthetics, I think you'll discover and amazing 1930s film! You know, they ain't making them anymore!

This is quite possibly the least known and seen all-star cast film in film history. But deservedly so. At the time it was made, films about airplanes and pilots were all the rage. Unfortunately, the source material (the Saint-Exupery 1931 novel of the same title) has been closely adapted; a rare thing for Hollywood, but not a good one in this case. As in the novel, much is made of the sensual thrill of being up there in the clouds, so we get lots of awestruck words and reactions from the Barrymores, Gargan and Montgomery. It's all very dated now, with a simple story of flyers delivering mail across South America at top speed, through treacherous conditions, whipped onward by company boss John Barrymore. Barrymore is strong, as usual, but his older brother Lionel, as a foreman, is so hunched-over and drab that he brings the picture down in every scene he's in. And the disconnectedness of the characters is noticeably bad for a major studio film. Gable and Loy are husband and wife, but they never have a scene together. In fact, Gable is never seen outside of his airplane's cockpit! Montgomery's part is even smaller. A shocking waste of talent. The only element not in the novel but added to the film is actually the best thing in it: A sick child's need for medicine that only the speed of an aircraft can bring in time.

Not as bad as one has been led to believe. The strengths and weaknesses of this production are exactly those of the studio system. No expense or effort has been spared to make this film, yet it never really `sings'. The cast is one of the most spectacular rounded up for an 84 minute film. The photography has a black and white sheen, a luminosity, which must have been unspeakably spectacular in the original nitrate print projected on a silver screen. The sets, a rare non- Cedric Gibbons design at MGM (credited to Alexander Toluboff) are suitably jazzy. The first five minutes are a set-up for audience sympathy dealing with an emergency delivery of Polio serum. Corny but well done. The worst parts of the film are exactly where it cleaves closest to St. Expury's original. Characters stop and begin to expostulate with a touch of the Eugene O'Neill's. In this case poetry is better shown than expressed. One of the strangest phenomena of Night Flight is the fact that the legion of stars in the cast rarely, if ever, play a scene with one another. Helen Hayes is married to Clark Gable yet they never share the screen together.

The film is strangely like a series of monologues or at best two shots. All of the characters and the drama are supposed to be tied together by John Barrymore, the hard driving managing director of the Trans Andean European AirMail. The original novel was based on St. Expury's experiences as a flyer, and later, a manager, with Aeropostale, the pioneering French Air Mail line later merged into Air France. Using Buenos Aries as a center, Aeropostale developed South American airoutes south to Patagonia, to the oil fields near Tierra del Fuego. The chief of station and one of Aeropostale's founders, Didier Daurat, (Riviere in the film) became legendary for his single minded drive to get the mail through, an early example of existential ethics. Another route was forged north across the River Plate and Uruguay to and through Paraguay to Bolivia and another, most spectacularly, across the Andes to Santiago, Chile.

Heros were produced which electrified France and the world. Mermoz pioneered the Dakar - Natal route across the South Atlantic as well as the Buenos Aries to Natal route. Henri Guillaumet flew across the Andes 396 times. The Andes were too high to be overflown even by the latest improved models used by Aeropostale and pilots had to fly their way around and through the mountains rather than over them, something which is shown in the film. For enthusiasts of vintage aviation the film is priceless with maybe three quarters of the flying done for real. John Barrymore unfortunately has begun his decline by the time this film was made and does his `eyebrow' thing to excess, signalling that he was either unhappy with his role or his domestic arrangements or both. Gable, just beginning his reign as the King of Hollywood, is almost unrecognizable in his pilot's outfit. Robert Montgomery manages to have scenes with the most co-stars in the picture, except for maybe John Barrymore. Helen Hayes is effective as the wife as far as that goes. Myrna Loy has a role usually described as `thankless'. Produced by David Selznick, it never appeared on his extensive resume and now can be seen as a very atypical Selznick project, beyond the accumulation of the talent. Undoubtedly the literary inclined Selznick was attracted to the book's having won the prestigious Prix Femina in 1931, though he was more sympathetic to period pieces (Dickens, GWTW) then contemporary drama. Perhaps he had been thinking of his associate at RKO (King Kong) , Air Corps pilot and airline executive Merian C. Cooper. Clarence Brown, who directed Garbo, was one of MGM's most romantic directors, always setting an atmosphere where love either triumphed or ended tragically. One wonders what would have happened if a more consciously `machine age' director like William Wellman or Howard Hawks had shaped the material.

The worst that might be said about NIGHT FLIGHT is to lament what might have been. Narrative techniques common today (and, ironically, during the silent era) would have rendered a more interesting film, though not one suitable for audiences of the time. In other words, a disappointment but not a terrible film by any means. The real curiosity is why it's never revived on Turner Classics which presumably owns both a print and the rights. I suspect that there may be a question as to the underlying rights to St. Expury's Vol de Nuit that might be responsible.

Night Flight (1933)

*** (out of 4)

This MGM film features an all-star cast that includes John Barrymore, Clark Gable, Lionel Barrymore, Helen Hayes, Robert Montgomery and Myrna Loy and it's these stars that make the film worth viewing. The story centers on the true story of the Trans-Andean European Air Mail service, which broke grounds by doing the dangerous practice of running flights at night. The story centers on a demanding boss (J. Barrymore) who will stop at nothing to have his men in the air and this here leads to a pilot (Gable) getting caught out in a dangerous storm and not being able to land while his wife (Hayes) waits for his return. NIGHT FLIGHT was unavailable for viewing until recently when the rights were finally cleared and Warner was able to issue it on DVD. Many of the people who had gotten a chance to view the movie over the past several decades called it a major disappointment and this is true to a point but at the same time it's still a lot of fun seeing this great cast in one picture. I think the biggest problem is that the screenplay really isn't all that impressive and most of the drama never comes because the story never builds up any emotional connection to any of the people we meet. The Gable character is meant to be the backbone of the drama yet we never get to really meet him and we certainly never get to know him as all of his scenes are in the air and he's given very little dialogue. We view the wife as she worries about him but most of her dialogue is so poorly written that again you really get no connection. Another problem is that the story is all over the place in terms of what it's trying to do. On one hand it's a character drama but we don't get to know the characters. The next minute it's an aerial picture and this is where the movie really takes off but there's not nearly enough scenes of the men actually dealing with the dangers of flying at night. The best moment in the film happens early on when a pilot gets lost in some fog and ends up having to fly through some mountains to reach safety. There's plenty of drama in this short sequence and there's some minor drama at the end but not enough to really carry the picture. As I said, the main reason to watch NIGHT FLIGHT is for the all-star cast even though many of them are wasted. I found Hayes to be pretty bland in the picture and Montgomery really doesn't get much to work with either. Gable is good in his part but he really doesn't get much to do either except look brave while flying. John Barrymore chews up the scenery as only he can while brother Lionel has a few funny bits in his part. Still, it's fun getting to see the two of them act together. The rest of the stars never share any scenes together, which will come as a disappointment to many. NIGHT FLIGHT pretty much disappeared for seventy-years but thankfully it's gotten a wide release so more people can check it out but it's best not to expect a masterpiece.

"Night Flight" was made to highlight the introduction of night flying, a novelty about the time this was made. I had to cut this picture some slack because nowadays it's a museum piece, but it sports an all-star cast and is in earnest as it points out some of the pitfalls of flying at night. This is still the 'open cockpit' era and without radar, but early on in the picture they mention the introduction of lights on the runways, without which they couldn't attempt night flight.

Best of the actors is Helen Hayes, followed by Robt. Montgomery and Clark Gable. The Barrymore brothers are on hand - I often feel like John Barrymore isn't trying but here he is adequate as the airport manager. There are several stories woven into the plot, the main thrust is about delivering badly needed serum to an Infantile Paralysis hospital in Rio de Janeiro (The picture takes place in South America).

So I said, C'mon - give credit where credit is due. The picture is 85 years old, only runs 84 minutes and is interesting and absorbing, keeping in mind this is pretty old stuff. Hence, my rating. Think you'll like it in spite of itself.