Odd combination of woman’s picture and British Imperial adventure. Ian Hunter and Errol Flynn are jolly decent British officers in a colony called “Dickit” or something – it’s a silly name and this is at times a silly movie, with it’s highly sympathetic depiction of the upper clsses, colourful cockneys and ripe dialogue (“pity a chap like that had to go west”).
Hunter is on leave for two months when he meets and falls for Kay Francis, who is mourning the loss of a dead pilot who she “loved” for “three ecstatic years” (outside of wedlock I presume which is a bit naughty).
I think this is the only Kay Francis movie I’ve ever seen – though I’m familiar with some aspects of her career: apparently she had trouble with her Ws and was a bit of a bitch, was very well paid but became less popular in films and Warners tried to get her to quit by putting her in increasingly humiliating films but she gutsed it out. She’s not bad here – pretty enough with a distinct throaty voice, even if she spends most of the movie delivering dialogue while looking off into the distance.
She plays an interesting character – an American independent woman of means, sexually active, a bit of a necrophiliac: she mainly falls for Errol because she reminds him of her ex, not because of anything special about him. They make eyes at each other but fight the attraction out of devotion to Hunter - fortunately some pesky Arabs come along to sort out people's problems.
There’s a fascinating scene where Errol’s sister admits she’s carried a torch for Ian Hunter for seven years – seven! – and tries to tells Errol about the benefits of such a one sided relationship – to look on wistfully enjoying their achievements, etc. Talk about promoting self-flagellating relationships.
(I made fun of the dialogue but at least it’s a film with a genuine philosophical theme – all about duty and love and making the most of each moment. Bill Collins is a booster of the film for this reason.)
Errol and Ian Hunter are decent chaps – Errol looks handsome and dashing, though there’s only one action sequence (an Arab ambush – we never see the climactic bombing raid). Hunter acquits himself quite well, with the professional aplomb of an actor who’s resigned to being accepted that Errol will out-charisma him (he doesn’t even get a death scene). Like Dawn Patrol this has a climax with two mates squabbling over who gets to go on a suicide mission - the two-British-soldiers-in-love-with-the-same-girl-in-the-middle-east plot also featured in the little remembered Cary Grant film The Last Outpost, a few years earlier.
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