The Last Flight (1931)

User Rating:

8.1/10   

Director:

William Dieterle

Writers:

John Monk Saunders (novel)
John Monk Saunders (screenplay)

Release Date:

29 August 1931 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

Plot Keywords:

Explosion | Attempted Rape | Hospital | Airplane Accident | Gunfire

Cast

Richard Barthelmess	...	Cary Lockwood
David Manners	...	Shep Lambert
Johnny Mack Brown	...	Bill Talbot (as John Mack Brown)
Helen Chandler	...	Nikki
Elliott Nugent	...	Francis (as Elliot Nugent)
Walter Byron	...	Frink

Runtime:

76 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | French

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Sound System)

Certification:

USA:Not Rated

Company:

First National Pictures

Trivia:

In a separately filmed trailer, Vitaphone production reel #4665, Richard Barthelmess and Helen Chandler discuss the picture.

Flawed but Fascinating

Though it pretty much deserves its reputation as a lost classic, The Last Flight is essentially a blatant ripoff of The Sun Also Rises. That's forgivable, but where Hemingway's depiction of despair cloaked in banter and monosyllables is delicate and evocative, John Monk Saunders tends to hit the same notes with a ball-peen hammer. Another problem is that much of the time the early-talkie cast simply recites the script's non-sequiturs and absurdities with singsong cheer and no clue that there's supposed to be a subtext. And if Helen Chandler gives a haunting performance, it seems less about acting than her own inner demons and premonitions of tragedy.

And yet... maybe because it was filmed only three or four years after the novel was published, the acrid Hemingway flavor comes through anyway. When they finally did make a movie of The Sun Also Rises, with a superb and faithful script by Peter Vietrel, it was let down by glossy production values and a menopausal big-star cast. This is how it should have looked: gritty and seedy, with dirt on the barroom floors. Flawed as it is, this movie (and A Farewell to Arms, filmed at the same time) does manage to put across Hemingway's vision of people connecting, brokenly and sardonically, in a world where no other hope has survived.