Wings in the Dark (1935)

Too much of everything

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Wings in the Dark (1935)You have to remember what a total thrill it was to fly a single engine plane back in the early 1930s, and even to see airplanes buzzing about in the sky. Of course we still love small airplanes and bushpilots, what we see of them. And we have a fuzzy feeling for that specialty pilot who paints messages in the sky with smoke. The message that starts the movie in the deep blue? "Smoke Flips" including the dot on the I. Some things have changed, indeed.This movie has several amazing things going for it, and two of them have names: Myrna Loy and Cary Grant. Myrna is the pilot Sheila Mason who writes the opening cigarette ad overhead, and she's like a small town Amelia Earhart--charming, daring, and a woman in a man's world. Grant plays Ken Gordon, another pilot and an instrument pioneer. Gordon's current trick is to fly "blind" meaning by feel and by instruments, hence the title of the movie--at first. And he wants to fly to Paris. The movie was shot 7 years after Lindbergh's solo flight to Paris, and two years before Earhart's disappearance.The director is little known James Flood, and he is helped a lot by both the beautiful actors (and their acting) and some really good photography under William Mellor, an unsung mainstay of Golden Age Hollywood. There are lots of strong close ups and good strong graphic designs, including some nice angled shots from high up, as well as some fast moving camera to follow the action. It's a an uncluttered affair, and this draws attention to the acting, which is good. Loy by this point was an established star (she had been in some 80 films by this point). Grant was newish (less than 20, all in three years), and as charming and cute as can be, but playing a more regular guy than usual--not playing "Cary Grant" quite yet.The movie takes its dramatic turns when Mason (Loy) and Gordon (Grant) interact one on one. First there is a tragedy, then an opportunity. There are some seemingly necessary functional moments in the film, a process of getting through the crisis, but then the movie kicks in again. It's all pretty wild and exciting, actually, if not deep or original. It's got its formula underpinning, but it makes it all fast and emotionally moving, at least for a sucker like me. This is just after the Code kicked in and there is no suggestive or racy behavior, just the new clean romantic drama between two stars who are bound, we hope, to get together by the end.

Producer Arthur Hornblow, Jr. borrowed Myrna Loy from MGM for a loan out film at Paramount and teamed her for the first time with Cary Grant who was under contract there. This must have been a courtship film of sorts because the following year Hornblow married Myrna Loy. I'm betting that top billing went to Loy because of Louis B. Mayer as a condition of the loan out and because Hornblow was courting her hot and heavy.In the Forties Cary and Myrna did The Bachelor And The Bobby Soxer and Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, both films more of the usual sort of material for both of them. Wings In The Dark is a drama about an Amelia Earhart type aviatrix and an aeronautical inventor who find love and happiness. But it's a bumpy road to all that.Grant is a cynical fellow who despises Loy as a circus stunt flier with no feel for the progress of aviation. Myrna properly puts him in his place when she points out that due to the status of women at the time, her kind of flying is all that's open to her and in doing what she does she is showing her sex as capable as the male. A very far reaching treatise on feminism for its time.During an accident Cary goes blind and he's not one to take charity. But as it were he happened to be working on developing instrument flying through thick clouds and fog and in the end he gives his machine the ultimate test.Wings In The Dark is dated because aviation has made light years more progress than when this film was made. And it does pale beside the two classic screen comedies that Grant and Loy later did. Still it does offer an interesting glimpse of both stars in their earlier year and for Grant an unusual bit of casting.

I noticed that one of the reviewers thought this was one of Cary Grant's and Myrna Loy's best films. Well, I am glad they liked it, but can't see why they were this enthusiastic about a film that looked an awful lot like a B-movie despite having Ms. Loy in the film. Now in 1935, Cary was still not a major star, so his playing lead in this decent time-passer isn't all that surprising. But, with Loy reaching great heights with her THIN MAN film the year before, it's surprising to see her in such an ordinary film. In quality and number of bad clichés, this film isn't nearly the film you'd expect for her in 1935.The film begins with both stars playing great pilots. Loy is a barnstormer while Grant is more sophisticated and is famous for his heroics and aviation pioneering work. Loy is clearly smitten by him, though he has little idea who she is. When Grant suffers a terrible eye injury that blinds him, she comes to his aid and he comes to love her. However, he's a bit of a fat-head about accepting help from her at first, so she secretly helps fund his research, as now that he's blind no one wants to risk the funds on his idea to perfect "flying blind"--no, not letting blind folks fly but allowing pilots to fly in foggy weather that would normally ground them.The romance aspect of the film is pretty good and the film is an amiable movie until near the very end. In a very difficult to believe twist, blind Cary flies up to save Loy! And, in a scene that made me want to scream, although he had just announced his intention to kill himself due to his blindness, in the final scene (where Loy saved him from this), Cary announces "I am beginning to see!!!!"--and his blindness is lifting!! I half expected to hear a chorus of angels and the sky open up with this abysmally clichéd finale. Before this terrible ending, the film would have earned a 6 or maybe 7. BUT, with this finale I think I am being very generous in giving it a 5.By the way, this is on the same DVD as "Cary Grant: Disc 2--The Screen Legend Collection. I advise you try to get it, as the other film (BIG BROWN EYES) is a wonderful and seldom seen gem.

A rather preposterous melodrama on the surface, WINGS IN THE DARK manages to retain a surprising amount of credibility due to solid direction and convincing performances. The far-fetched storyline of a recently blinded pilot Ken Gordon (Cary Grant) relying on newly-created aviation software to guide fellow pilot and girlfriend Sheila Mason (Myrna Loy) through deadly fog is brimming full with gaping plot holes and ham-fisted dialogue, which typically spell serious trouble for most productions. However, the film is salvaged, and even made thoroughly enjoyable, by the compelling, believable performances of Loy and Grant and director James Flood's brisk direction, which moves the picture along at a steady rate and helps to minimize much of the script's potential schmaltz. The combined efforts of Loy, Grant, and Flood make an entertaining and sometimes compelling little aviation drama out of what could have been a total disaster, which is quite an amazing feat on each individual's part!