MOVIE OF THE DAY: "NIGHT FLIGHT" (1933)

This poster would have been even better if the
artist knew what John Barrymore and
Helen Hayes really looked like.

Here's Night Flight in one sentence: While the managing director of an airline stops at nothing to create an overnight flight service, a pilot flies through a dangerous storm to deliver the mail.

OK, sounds like the makings of a fine dramatic two-reeler. Unfortunately, the real result -- an 84-minute feature trying to be an epic -- was such that the author of the book on which it was based eventually pulled it from circulation. But more on that later.

Ridiculously promoted as "Grand Hotel of the air!" in 1933, Night Flight seems to be the movie that the phrase "interesting failure" was created for. It anticipates the Airport movies of the 1970s: Get a bunch of famous actors, throw them into some airborne danger, and see what happens. 

Gable focuses on the bottle of bourbon
promised him if he gets this in one take.

In Night Flight's case, it's really very little. Having seen it twice, I actually marveled how a half-dozen A-list stars, surrounded by fine character actors, are unable to lift a thin story off the runway. Clark Gable, in particular, has what was either the most thankless role of his career or the easiest gig ever. 

Speaking no more than a dozen lines of dialogue throughout the picture, he spends all his time in the open cockpit of his plane. The most action he gets is scribbling notes to the radio operator in the seat behind him. The whole shebang probably took one day's work. I mean, the close-up of Gable's hand writing notes probably belonged to a stand-in (or is it write-in?).

Hayes demands airline boss John
Barrymore get her on the first
flight back to Broadway.

Speaking of Gable, the concept of Helen Hayes as his wife is too much to swallow. Even at 32, she already had the demeanor of a middle-aged housewife who only wishes she was married to Clark Gable. And the closest she gets to him in Night Flight is gazing at his photo! It  seems like Louis B. Mayer's big fat joke at her expense. Alright Miss Famous Broadway star! Try to make something of this claptrap!

Yet despite Hayes's reputation as a great stage actress, there's something consistently off about her early film appearances, especially in Night Flight. Either she never learned to act for movies, or can't successfully lower herself to their standards.

Loy tries desperately to
push Gargan away.

Not even Myrna Loy, a first-rate screen presence, can rescue her brief, teary role -- like that of Helen Hayes -- as a pilot's wife. Now Loy, I can easily imagine getting it on with Gable. But married to middling supporting actor William Gargan? Not a chance. She and Hayes must have spent their off-hours commiserating about playing the weeping little ladies stuck on earth while their flyboys are up in the air.

That is, if they even saw each other. For all Night Flight's great cast, there's almost no interaction between anybody. Helen Hayes, for instance, is the only one other than Lionel Barrymore to share a scene with John Barrymore. Robert Montgomery gets about three minutes with Lionel, which probably took a day to shoot. 

"How's it feel to play a role on the same level of
Myrna Loy and Helen Hayes -- meaning,
worthless?"

Montgomery, by the way, is another pilot whose existence seems to be just provide further star power. At least he has a character, even if it isn't very deep: a devil-may-care pilot who shows up to work in a tuxedo having been out drinking all night with his latest floozie -- and nobody at the airport thinks it dangerous. 

However, he provides the movie's pre-code moment near the end, pointing out an overnight airplane to the hooker in his bed. It's not much, but compared to what's come before, it's gold.

John and Lionel play a round of Can You Top This?

As usual, it's up to the Brothers Barrymore to provide Night Flight's best moments. As Riviere, the hard-headed managing director of the airline, John gradually gives unexpected depth to a role that could have been one-note. 

Yes, Riviere is aware he's pushing his pilots to the limit, but he knows that night flights are the future of aviation -- and that a vital polio serum needs to be delivered to a hospital the following morning.

Apparently, the Barrymores weren't
hot stuff in Sweden.

In his entire career, Lionel Barrymore never missed an opportunity to steal a scene, particularly when  opposite his younger brother. Playing Riviere's eczema-suffering stooge Robineau, Lionel is constantly upstaging John by scratching himself silly, even going so far as reaching down the back of his pants. John, no stranger to overplaying a role himself, lets Lionel own their every scene. As if he had a choice.

Aside: If you ever wondered what an overflowing ashtray would sound like if it could talk, listen to John Barrymore in Night Flight. His lungs must have been the color and texture of licorice. And you have to wonder if he burned his fingers the way he smokes cigarettes down to their stubs.

Hope you like this, because you're going
to see a lot of it.

Director Clarence Brown probably realized Night Flight didn't quite reach the heights of M-G-M's two other all-star releases of the time, Grand Hotel and Dinner at Eight, each of which runs a full half hour longer. Likely in order to get Night Flight closer the 90-minute mark, endless shots of a mail plane flying over the Andes pad out its running time. 

Not that they aren't genuinely dramatic. But when accompanied by an utterly unmemorable score, their reason for being is less artistic and more practical -- otherwise, Night Flight would probably run roughly 77 minutes, laughable for an all-star cast even in 1933.

"Ah oui! And zen after I get ze Hollywood money,
I will pull it from release! I am ze clever one, no?"

Night Flight, the credits inform us, was "based upon the 1931 Prix Femina novel", as if to convince Americans it sounded important. Its author, Antoine de Saint-Expuery, probably sounds familiar if, like me, you were forced to slog through his most famous novel, The Little Prince, in high school French class. Saint-Expuery hated Night Flight's transfer to screen, and refused to renew the screen rights after his agreement expired in 1942.

Thus, Night Flight became that most mouthwatering example of a movie: lost. Doubling the legend was its all-star cast. Fans cried, If only we could see it! When it was finally made available 79 years after its original release, those same fans muttered, If only it was good. That's the way these things usually work.

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