La baie du destin

"Wings Of The Morning" is a good movie. Not a great movie, but a good one and there are several reasons to watch it. First and foremost, it is a rare opportunity to see and hear Ireland's most famous tenor, John McCormack. He sings several songs as the featured entertainer at a dinner party. He doesn't appear in the picture until about an hour into it, but his gorgeous tenor voice delivers "Killarney" and "All Those Endearing Young Charms" and it is worth the wait.

This is also England's first Technicolor movie and it is pretty in its own right, but must seem primitive to film sophisticates. Especially eye-catching are shots of the Irish countryside as McCormack sings. Annabella makes her English-speaking debut in this picture and she is beautiful but her accent makes her difficult to understand at times.

Well, that's about it. The story is ordinary, the plot points telegraphed and it moves at glacial speed. I would have rated it lower were it not for the reasons mentioned above.

In the late 19th century a Spanish gypsy princess (Annabella) falls in love and marries a nobleman (Leslie Banks) but he dies shortly after in a riding accident. She returns to Spain, but 40 years later descendents of the couple (Henry Fonda and Annabella in a dual role) meet and fall in love with their relationship also revolved around horses and horse racing.

This Irish set romancer is best known for being the first British three strip Technicolor feature film and one of only 9 made by Britain in the 1930s. It was also the film in which Hollywood star Henry Fonda met Frances Ford Seymour, the woman who would become his wife and the mother of Peter and Jane while they were filming on the set at Denham Studios where the film was in part shot. The film also benefits from a cameo by opera singer and tenor John McCormack, a cross dressing heroine and some good looking location work.

Although there had been earlier British colour films in other processes, this was the first in technicolour.Obviously Fox spent the money on the cast and colour,as the story is second rate. Lots of lovely country views and John Mccornick singing away.Curiously he keeps on looking at a small book for the lyrics.A very experienced cast many who had been in films since early silent films.

Forget the plot, which is silly, but bask in the glorious 3-strip Technicolor-the first British colour film-which is very fine indeed, natural and delicate and not at all garish. I assume that the use of many different coloured props (dresses, fruits etc.) was deliberate to show off the process, but the result is beautiful; it must have been something of a sensation for the 1937 audiences.

Add to this cameos by the famous (ageing here) jockey Steve Donoghue; songs by the much-loved singer Count John McCormack; cameos by two well-known (in their day) racing commentators; and extremely rare footage in colour of Derby Day, and you have quite a valuable historical record of the times.

A young Henry Fonda (well-31 but only into his 3rd. Year of movies) is almost unrecognisable apart from his distinctive voice and hints of those pale blue eyes that became more piercing as he aged.

The print that UK's Talking Pictures channel showed (August 2022) is almost beyond criticism, maybe a little faded in places, but what a joy to view!

While Korda was in the process of constructing his own Technicolor processing plant at Denham he in the meantime provided his studio facilities for this pioneering project, the very first Technicolor feature made outside Hollywood.

Inevitably it's quite a hybrid, with an American director and cameraman, an American leading man pretending to be Canadian and a French leading lady pretending to be a Spanish gypsy pretending to be a lad (a deception partly facilitated by wearing slightly less rouge on her cheeks than in the rest of the film).

Since most of the exteriors were shot in Ireland the colour scheme is inevitably predominantly green, but colour is occasionally used at the service of the narrative as when the heroine is spectacularly transformed by slipping into a burgundy gown, the progress by jockey Steve Donohue in the Epsom Derby is made possible to follow by his ochre shirt, followed by the dramatic climactic appearance of the bright red objection flag.

Archival interest is provided by the partiticipation of tenor John McCormack and tipster Ras Prince Monolulu.