Le meurtrier s'est échappé

During WWII, most of the films coming out of Hollywood seemed to have a strong patriotic angle and many were about either the war or about Axis spies and the like. Some were very good,....many were very jingoistic and poorly written. "Fly-By-Night" is one of the latter films...a movie which entertained folks back in the day but which became very dated very quickly.

The film begins with an escaped mental patient sneaking into the car belonging to Dr. Burton (Richard Carlson). However, he turns out to be quite rational and was being held prisoner in a mental hospital run by Nazis! However, when the man is soon murdered, the police are quick to believe the Doctor did it and they ignore his pleas to investigate the hospital. So, he does something which no human being has ever done but which is COMMON in old B-movies....be pulls a gun on the cops and runs away in order to solve the case himself!! Talk about a B-movie cliche! What follows is predictable and a bit like a bad B-mystery combined with a WWII spy film and Hitchcock's "The 39 Steps". Silly writing make this a film that is easy to skip, even though the folks starring in it were pretty good and gave it their best. Filled with cliches and many plot holes and ridiculous characters....but also, in its own way, mildly entertaining as well.

I fell in love with black and white films of the '30s and '40s when I was a young teenager, and I always remembered Fly by Night as one of my favorites. For years I couldn't find it, and I was so happy to discover it this weekend again. I'm a bit more discerning than I was at 10 or 11 (at least of old movies), so I recognize now that it's not Hitchcock-caliber. But I still found it delightful. Richard Carlson and Nancy Kelly are wonderfully matched. There is just the right amount of light tension, lots of action, and throughout, after the first scene, humor and sophistication and unexpected fun. I must say, this is in no way a film noir! It has none of the elements of noir --- no antihero with moral qualms, no "bad girl," and especially because it's much too lighthearted (the music with the ending credits makes that clear, if you aren't sure!). I've seen it referred to as a screwball comedy-mystery, but I wouldn't call it that, either. It's not screwball, just fun with mystery and actors who can pull it off. It's a frothy concoction, a cocktail with a scoop of ice cream and unexpected lingering flavors. (I couldn't otherwise have remembered it for decades!) It's an original.

A 39 Steps clone but not a bad one by any means. Richard Carlson plays a doctor who finds himself on the run accused of murder, which leads to Nazi business of course because it's 1942. I believe the term often used in wrongfully accused stories is "through no fault of his own." Well that's not the case here. Carlson's character is a total idiot who makes one mistake after another. I don't blame the police for suspecting him. The guy was acting guilty as sin.

Despite the writing for him, Carlson does a fine job. He's a likable guy even when he's manhandling half-dressed women, waving guns around at people without provocation, or robbing a sweet old couple. The rest of the cast is even better. No, not Nancy Kelly. She's pretty bland. I mean the list of notable character actors in this - Walter Kingsford, Cy Kendall, Miles Mander, Martin Kosleck, Albert Bassermann among others. Robert Siodmak directs and does a fine job with one of his earliest American movies. There's one scene near the end where things get dark in a shocking way that really surprised me. It's a tease of what would come later with Siodmak's film noir successes.

Director Robert Siodmak did an excellent job with this B thriller, which has some unusual plot twists and ideas in it. Richard Carlson is the lead, and he is extremely well-cast as an innocent and well-meaning bystander who becomes involved in complex intrigues which have nothing to do with him, gets accused of a murder he did not commit, and goes on the run to save his name. He meets the insouciant and charming Nancy Kelly, makes her help him at gunpoint, and they end up being forced to get married by a justice of the peace in order to avoid being killed by some heavies waiting outside with guns, which is certainly a new twist in story lines! The story concerns a new military invention called 'G-32', the secret of which the baddies want to steal. The film opens with the inventor's assistant escaping from a madhouse, where he has been incarcerated by the baddies, though we don't know at first that the man is not really a maniac on the run. He doesn't last long, but before he dies he has compromised poor Richard Carlson and enmeshed him in a web of plotting, spying, and murder. There is an amazing series of scenes where Carlson and Kelly leap from a speeding car onto an auto-carrier, catch a free ride, and then later unfasten the car and reverse it down the ramp while in motion on a highway, and escape in it. Those interested in stunts will be all agog at watching this. The film is good viewing and should be more widely available.

Above-average Paramount "B" thriller from director Robert Siodmak. A few surprises (including an imaginative action sequence and a jolting revelation during a climatic confrontation) elevate a standard falsely-accused-man-on-the-lam plot. Well-paced and atmospheric.