La tornade

While on leave from his desert post somewhere in The Empire, Col. Wister (Ian Hunter) meets an American widow (Kay Francis), falls in love and marries her. He brings her back to his desert outpost, which has been overseen in his absence by Capt. Roark (Errol Flynn). She takes one look at Flynn, and you can probably write the rest. And Col. Wister is a noble, stiff-upper-lip representation of the British Lion (they're good sports).

There is no new ground broken in "Another Dawn", it's all been done before. The 3 principals acquit themselves very well and add some polish to a familiar theme. The picture is held together by Hunter and Francis, with Flynn tagging along as eye candy. Good but not spectacularly so, it is a harmless way to pass 75 minutes.

****** 6 of 10

Well, I didn't have as violent a response as the first post I read, but "Another Dawn" is from another era and didn't survive it, trust me. It's all pip-pip, jolly good, and honor is all in this dated film starring the handsome Errol Flynn and the lovely Kay Francis. She's a widow who marries Flynn's commander, though she still mourns her late husband. When she meets Flynn, guess what, she finds she can love again. Yeah, like who couldn't. They're both too honorable to do much about it, though.

Most of the film takes place post-World War I in a Sahara outpost so there is lots of sand and some battles. Flynn is subdued in this, and Francis is radiant. Some of the dialogue is actually quite poetic - probably because they're quoting poems - and if it were in, say, The Rains Came, it would have worked very well - but it only adds to the melodrama in this film.

Films such as "Another Dawn" are interesting as artifacts of a lost time when, I suppose, people had stronger values and lived for the greater good. When it's a stronger script and production, of course, these marvelous qualities are worth revisiting, admiring, and feeling guilty about. Alas, however, nobility is not well served by "Another Dawn."

Offsetting the awkward and embarrassing elements of the triangular love story are Korngold's gloriously exotic (if at times obtrusive) score and some occasional poetry in the dialogue. And, for the last two minutes of the film - finally - inspired direction from William Dieterle who, as we know from his better films (Devil and Daniel Webster), was perfectly capable of such things.

I watched this movie solely because Errol Flynn was in it. My all time favorite. However I was serendipitously introduced to Kay Francis, one of Hollywood's great female stars. She has since become one of my most adored actresses from a bygone era of great female actresses. Why movie land has not highlighted this movie and these two great film stars together is a mystery to me. Further, it would have been refreshing to see them together on other projects. This movie tugged at my heart as I watched it very late one night. My teenage children thought it was mushy. They were probably on target since they don't get a chance to see REAL acting like this, but rather a lot of sex scenes and nudity. To all E.F. or K.F. aficionado's, rent it, copy it, see it. You'll be glad you did.

Fine movie for what it is but 'what it is' won't be to everyone's tastes. Leonard Maltin's Film Guide calls it an adventure story but that's not really accurate. There's very little action in this film. This is a melodrama, a soaper even, as evidenced by the fact it stars Kay Francis. She was one of the queens of the melodrama in the '30s, often torn between two men as she is here. The plot is trite. Francis plays a woman who lost her pilot fiancé in an accident. She meets honorable and all-around-swell-guy Ian Hunter, who quickly falls in love with her and proposes. She marries him despite not being in love with him. Later she meets hotshot pilot Errol Flynn and, well, you can figure the rest. For his part, Flynn is as charming as ever and has good chemistry with Francis. The highlight of the film is the Erich Korngold score, which makes things seem more exciting than they ever really are. A nice production, great actors, and a beautiful score are nothing to dismiss. Still, how much you enjoy this will depend on how much you enjoy romantic melodramas from the 1930s, where everyone stares off at some point and recites a soliloquy like they're in a stage play.