Dark Journey (1937)

Director:

Victor Saville

Writers:

Lajos Biró (play)
Lajos Biró (screenplay)

Release Date:

2 July 1937 (USA)

Genre:

Adventure | Romance | Thriller | War

Plot:

During World War I, a German spy and a British spy meet and fall in love. |

Plot Keywords:

Spy | WWII | Beautiful Woman | WWI | Based On Play

Cast

Conrad Veidt	...	Baron Karl Von Marwitz
Vivien Leigh	...	Madeleine Goddard
Joan Gardner	...	Lupita
Anthony Bushell	...	Bob Carter
Ursula Jeans	...	Gertrude
Margery Pickard	...	Colette
Eliot Makeham	...	Anatole Bergen
Austin Trevor	...	Dr. Muller
Sam Livesey	...	Schaffer
Edmund Willard	...	Chief of German Intelligence
Charles Carson	...	Head of Fifth Bureau
Phil Ray	...	Faber
Henry Oscar	...	Swedish Magistrate
Laurence Hanray	...	Cottin
Cecil Parker	...	Captain of Q-Boat

Also Known As:

The Anxious Years

Runtime:

77 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Wide Range Noiseless Recording)

Certification:

Canada:G (Ontario) | Australia:G | Finland:K-16

Company:

London Film Productions

Firefly Without the Music

One of the first reviews I ever did for IMDb was of The Firefly, the 1937 MGM musical that starred Allan Jones and Jeanette MacDonald. The original book of the Broadway operetta was scrapped for a plot involving espionage agents working for the exiled King of Spain and for Napoleon and they were played by MacDonald and Jones respectively.

It seems as though I may have discovered where the story came from as Dark Journey is in fact based on a couple of real life French and German agents operating during World War I. Both are stationed in neutral Stockholm and serve as conduits for intelligence for their respective governments.

Like in The Firefly both fall for each other and in the end the female uses all her feminine charms to trap the male as the British use a Trojan horse gambit as well as Vivien Leigh's considerable charms to nail Conrad Veidt. What do they do, you have to watch Dark Journey for that, but I have to say it is rather clever.

Dark Journey and Fire Over England with her then husband Laurence Olivier are the films that got Vivien Leigh her first real critical notice. Ultimately in her career which in point of fact has very few films to her credit, it led to double Academy Awards for Gone With the Wind and A Streetcar Named Desire. Her beauty is stunning in Dark Journey and no hint of the physical and mental problems that plagued her tragically all her adult life.

Conrad Veidt who escaped Nazi Germany was also making quite a mark in the British cinema. His career role there would be Jaffa in The Thief of Bagdad and later on of course as Major Stroesser in Casablanca in the USA. He made a good living playing a lot of Nazis during World War II although he was as rabidly anti-Nazi as they come. He left Germany because he had a Jewish wife. He died way too young and never saw the ultimate triumph against Hitler.

If any of you have seen The Firefly you know exactly what happens to both Leigh and Veidt. You could do a lot worse than seeing both of them back to back.