[5]
MGM tries to recreate the success of Grand Hotel by stuffing another roster of big stars into an ensemble drama. This time the story takes place in the air, as pilots risk their lives to deliver mail by night over stormy South America. Night Flight was made before airplanes had closed cockpits and radar, so night flying was far more dangerous than one might imagine. While three different pilots risk their lives, the film also revolves around their coworkers and loved ones on the land below. The script is a bit scattershot in its focus, but opens and closes on a deadly ill child whose life depends on the timely delivery of a serum aboard one of the flights.
John and Lionel Barrymore both play chiefs at the mail delivery company’s command center, while Clark Gable, Robert Montgomery, and William Gargan play the brave pilots — and not all of them survive. Helen Hayes plays Gable’s distraught wife, trying desperately to get whatever information she can about why her husband is hours behind schedule. Myrna Loy plays Gargan’s worried wife. Montgomery gets some nice, subtle moments where he seems to appreciate life more after surviving a storm in the Andes mountains. The histrionics are reserved for Helen Hayes, when she rips John Barrymore a new one after learning her husband’s plane is lost over the sea and nearly out of gas.
While Night Flight moves at a brisk pace and features some progressive action-oriented editing, scoring, and cinematography, it suffers from the lack of a central, main character among the ensemble. It might have been a more gripping story if it focused on Gable’s, Hayes’, and the Barrymores’ characters and let the rest fall by the wayside. It’s far from a terrible movie. It’s just never quite ‘takes off’.
Directed by Clarence Brown.