Dark Journey

The plot develops with just enough direction and character development to keep a general story in focus. Seemingly standard inter-war spy movie with a beautiful female spy, threatening German spies, murder, and clean cut British agents. The cast is good with Vivien Leigh and Conrad Veidt playing their roles well. The supporting cast is like many early movies, lots of professionals with good craftwork and little fame. The production is interesting look at the period and the state of movie making. The special effects are simple, but effective for their period. Obviously, in a British film the star will be pure in the end, and can not be a German agent. However, Leigh does a good job of keeping the real situation under wraps for a while. The characters take on depth, but most drop away by the end. Only the main spies from two sides are left in the center, and the romance overcomes the effects of the war. Probably during WW2, the British film industry reflected differently on the end of the movie, but it was in the can. An interesting film: fun to watch Leigh and Veidt, and a good period piece on the politics, morays, and society in neutral Sweden in WWI.

Vivien Leigh is beautiful and effective in her role as a spy masquerading as a Parisian dressmaker. There is requisite tension and passion in this thriller loosely-based on the real-life affair of couturiere Madeleine Cheruit and a high-ranking German officer during World War I. Another version of the story of the famous designer and her military lover is told in The Proprietor (1996)starring Jeanne Moreau.

I am always ready to make allowances for old films. Unlike others, I understand that they cannot possibly equal modern films. A film made in 1937 - what's that? 86 years ago? - cannot remotely be the same as modern films. The acting, the techincal aspects, the mindset, what was considered proper and what not, acceptable or not. That's why I have no patience with people who bleat, "it's dated ... un-pc ..." And my favorite, "It's unsuitable for our modern sensitivites." i.e. It's not woke or PC. LOL. Of course it isn't, Einstein. It was made 40, 50 - 80 years ago.

This film, while not necessarily entrancing, is not bad. You might even love it if you like oldies. There is only one thing that I found annoying and distracting. The story is supposed to happen in 1918 ... but everybody, especially the women, is dressed in glaringly 1930s fashion. Even the makeup and the haristyles. They don't even pretend to make it look like 1918. That never fails to annoy me. And the same thing happens in modern films, make no mistake. I've seen contemporary films that are allegedly set in 1960 but you'd never know it judging by the fashion. There IS something called research, you know.

I must admit that I cannot see Conrad Veldt as a romantic figure. Maybe I'm too influenced by Casablanca, I don't know. My bad, of course.

Still and all, I'd much rather watch an oldie like this one, with all its shortcomings, than the garbage Hollyweird relentlessly vomits these days. I mean, if you want to see anachronism on a grotesque level, watch any of the "period" pieces they slosh on us these days. At best you'll get a good laugh.

Vivien Leigh is even better in this film than she was in GONE WITH THE WIND. She has a fragile, hunted beauty which works perfectly for her role as the unwilling spy forced into romantic entanglements and deceptions. The story is murky, but that doesn't really matter. Watch the sequence where Vivien has been marched aboard ship and locked into her stateroom for deportment as an unwanted spy. Using just her eyes and her expression, Vivien does an entire scene of tossing in her sleep, going to the porthole, and lying back down to sleep again, showing every emotion from fear, suspicion, and doubt to acceptance of her own guilt. Then there's an explosion and she sits bolt upright, looking as fragile and unspeakably lovely as a hunted deer. This is a movie where the sheer radiance of the lead actress makes everything else seem dull by comparison.

I watched this movie late late late one night and it really caught me off guard. I missed the opening credits and at first thought it was some early Hitchcock movie that for some reason I had never heard of. It has some Hitchcock-esque bits from the snappy dialogue in tense situations, a rich supporting cast, bits in a music hall etc but of course it's not Hitchcock. It's Vivien Leigh, who is massively hot as usual, playing a double spy and falling in love with some creepy German guy. I kept expecting a vaguely handsome, stalwart American hero type to nab her but she actually fell for the German, who was ostensibly a bad guy. I guess 3 years later it would have been impossible to make this film but in 1937 it was ok.

As I said, great supporting cast, solid turn by the leads, nice script and tight directing. unfortunately the love story is not as well rendered as it could have been (their exchanges are a bit too arch for my taste), the suspense never really builds to a crescendo and the effects in the end naval engagement certainly do not hold up well but overall it's still a pretty good film.