Les ailes dans l'ombre

Cary Grant and Myrna Loy star in "Wings in the Dark," a 1935 film. It's obvious with films like Christopher Strong and others that with Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart around, aviation was a huge topic. In this film, Grant and Loy play aviators Ken Gordon and Sheila Mason - she does the stunt circuit. After Gordon is wounded in an accident in his workshop, he goes blind, and Sheila is there to help him. Gordon wants to continue his work, and is interested in perfecting the plane instruments so that even a blind man could fly a plane, that is, fly in terrible fog or other weather conditions.

Gordon doesn't realize it, but Sheila is funding his work by telling him that articles he's written have been sold. When his plane is taken away due to lack of payments, she agrees to fly a plane from New York to Moscow so she can collect $25,000. It isn't the smooth flight she anticipated.

This is a pretty good film with both actors turning in good performances. Grant gets to show his dramatic flair - the man could really do anything. Now that I've seen so many of his early films, I'm convinced he had a nose job - his nose is definitely longer early on. Nevertheless he was always extremely handsome.

Loy and Grant went on to make other films together, and this early one isn't mentioned much. It doesn't compare to Mr. Blandings or the Bachelor and the Bobby Soxer, but the stars raise it up a level.

Fans of Grant are in for a treat in this lovely movie about finding love among the skies. Grant is joined by Myrna Loy as a flier who finds love with him, although they first have to overcome a series of terrible events that threaten the two. There are some beautiful scenes between the two leads and a sense of genuine emotion on the screen before you. This is only one of three times that Grant and Loy acted together but is one of their best onscreen efforts. It took me a long time to hunt out this movie but it was well worth it and I'd heartily recommend it to anyone.

Wings in the Dark (1935)

*** (out of 4)

Ken Gordon (Cary Grant) is a pilot who is trying to use technology so that other pilots will be able to fly blind. He meets stunt pilot Sheila Mason (Myrna Loy) but soon afterwards Ken is blinded in an accident. He soon hits depression but he believes now that he's really blind he can prove his technology.

WINGS IN THE DARK isn't a masterpiece or even a classic Hollywood picture but it's certainly an entertaining if rather routine drama that features two great stars and enough entertainment to make it worth watching. The film isn't one that was made to be an "A" picture but as far as a "B" film goes there's no doubt that it's very much worth watching.

There are a lot of cliché things in the picture even for 1935 standards. For starters, the entire story is rather predictable and especially in the way that it plays out. I'm not going to ruin the ending but you'll see it coming from a mile away and what happens at the very end was silly enough to where you'd have to right to boo it. Yes, the closing moments are really that bad! I'd also argue that the romance in the film really doesn't work either.

With that said, there are some terrific moments with the stunt sequences. The aerial flying sequences are extremely good and if you enjoy Hollywood films with real stunts then you'll certainly enjoy what's on display here. I'd also argue that both Grant and Loy were very good in their roles. Loy got the top-billing since Grant wasn't yet a star but it's his performance that steals the picture. I wouldn't say he gave one of the greatest performances by an actor playing someone who is blind but I thought the actor did a really good job in the scenes where his character acts out his frustration.

WINGS IN THE DARK will certainly appeal to fans of the two stars and they're both good enough to make it worth watching.

Wings in the Dark (1935)

You have to remember what a total thrill it was to fly a single engine plane back in the early 1930s, and even to see airplanes buzzing about in the sky. Of course we still love small airplanes and bushpilots, what we see of them. And we have a fuzzy feeling for that specialty pilot who paints messages in the sky with smoke. The message that starts the movie in the deep blue? "Smoke Flips" including the dot on the I.

Some things have changed, indeed.

This movie has several amazing things going for it, and two of them have names: Myrna Loy and Cary Grant. Myrna is the pilot Sheila Mason who writes the opening cigarette ad overhead, and she's like a small town Amelia Earhart--charming, daring, and a woman in a man's world. Grant plays Ken Gordon, another pilot and an instrument pioneer. Gordon's current trick is to fly "blind" meaning by feel and by instruments, hence the title of the movie--at first. And he wants to fly to Paris. The movie was shot 7 years after Lindbergh's solo flight to Paris, and two years before Earhart's disappearance.

The director is little known James Flood, and he is helped a lot by both the beautiful actors (and their acting) and some really good photography under William Mellor, an unsung mainstay of Golden Age Hollywood. There are lots of strong close ups and good strong graphic designs, including some nice angled shots from high up, as well as some fast moving camera to follow the action. It's a an uncluttered affair, and this draws attention to the acting, which is good. Loy by this point was an established star (she had been in some 80 films by this point). Grant was newish (less than 20, all in three years), and as charming and cute as can be, but playing a more regular guy than usual--not playing "Cary Grant" quite yet.

The movie takes its dramatic turns when Mason (Loy) and Gordon (Grant) interact one on one. First there is a tragedy, then an opportunity. There are some seemingly necessary functional moments in the film, a process of getting through the crisis, but then the movie kicks in again. It's all pretty wild and exciting, actually, if not deep or original. It's got its formula underpinning, but it makes it all fast and emotionally moving, at least for a sucker like me. This is just after the Code kicked in and there is no suggestive or racy behavior, just the new clean romantic drama between two stars who are bound, we hope, to get together by the end.

WINGS IN THE DARK (Paramount, 1935), directed by James Flood, is an agreeable little 75-minute story that centers upon a pilot named Ken Gordon (Cary Grant), attempting to perfect instruments for safe flying through darkness and fog. While working with some chemicals, a gas explosion occurs, blinding him before he can ever prove his experiments successful.

Top billing goes to MGM star Myrna Loy, in her first film for Paramount since LOVE ME TONIGHT (1932) where she played the secondary role opposite Maurice Chevalier and Jeanette MacDonald in the now regarded classic musical. Seeing Loy in this Paramount programmer comes as a surprise, especially since the studio had a roaster of contract players ranging from major names as Sylvia Sidney or Carole Lombard, to less important but familiar actresses as Frances Drake or Mary Brian (all who have worked opposite Grant at one time or another), but for the standpoint of the story as to whom would possibly be more satisfactory and believable in assuming the role as an aviatrix, or whose name on the marque would be important enough to draw attention, Loy, reaching the height of her career, became the chosen one. She is well cast as Sheila Mason, a woman flier who, feeling responsible for his accidental blindness, acquires a seeing eye dog (played by Lightning) for Ken. Not wanting to be pitied, he rejects the animal. Taking up residence in the country with his faithful mechanic/ friend, Mac (Hobart Cavanaugh), Ken attempts on becoming a writer in his spare time while adjusting to his life in darkness. As for Sheila, she secretly attempts in earning back Ken's finances by flying her airplane from Moscow to New York, only to risk her life going through intense fog and darkness.

Others in the cast include Roscoe Karns (Nick Williams, Sheila's manager); Dean Jagger (Tops Harmon); Bert Hanlon (Yip Morgan); Russell Hopton (Jake) and radio broadcaster Graham McNamee appearing as himself. Hobart Cavanaugh, a familiar face of countless movies throughout most of the 1930s and '40s, usually appearing without credit from minor to bits parts, ranging from drunks to mousy husbands, is given a sizeable part to good advantage as he did in, I COVER THE WATERFRONT (United Artists, 1933) opposite Ben Lyon and Claudette Colbert.

Not an important film by any means in spite of a its two leading actors, WINGS IN THE DARK could have been an important project with such a fine premise that might have worked into a powerful and dramatic theme. A fine mix of its central character coping with blindness and a well-scripted aviation story explores Grant's skill as a fine dramatic actor, especially how he handles himself as a blind man. Also recommended in similar themes are Grant's aviation adventure story of ONLY ANGELS HAVE WINGS (Columbia, 1939) and PRIDE OF THE MARINES (Warners, 1945), starring John Garfield in a fact-based story of a soldier adjusting to life after losing his sight in battle during World War II.

With WINGS IN THE DARK being the initial pairing of Grant and Loy, they are best remembered today for THE BACHELOR AND THE BOBBY SOXER (1947) and MR. BLANDINGS BUILDS HIS DREAM HOUSE (1948) for RKO Radio Pictures. While these films have become notable comedy classics, thanks to frequent television revivals and availability on video cassette and later DVD, WINGS IN THE DARK, having played sporadically on commercial television in the 1960s and 70s, remains in the dark as being the least known of their three collaborations.

Close to being largely forgotten today, this little item has become available for viewing on DVD format. It is made watchable due to the fine combination of Myrna Loy and Cary Grant before they became superstars. (***)