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Plot:
- by Zoë Shaw
Ken is a flier trying
to perfect instruments for safe flying in the dark or fog. As his devices
near completion, he is blinded in a gas explosion. Sheila, a writer/flier is
in love with him, but the feeling is not mutual. Ken goes to live in the
country with his mechanic and dog for company. He tries to be a writer but
never knows the cheques he cashes are from Sheila. Sheila attempts a
dangerous flight from Moscow to New York. When she gets into trouble, Ken
realizes he loves her. He and his dog go up in the fog, and lead her to
safety by means of the instruments he perfected.
Review:
- by Debbie
Dunlap
Ken Gordon is a pilot who has invented a blind flying
apparatus for airplanes. Moments before he's to make the final tests on the instruments
and thereby prove to the world the benefit of this new invention, Ken is blinded in an
accident.
Barnstormer, Sheila Mason, has worshiped Ken from afar. She
has finally met him, face to face, when his accident occurs.
Ken doesn't want to be pitied or to be a burden on anyone,
so he retires to a country home to eke out a dark, lonely existence. Sheila, however,
won't allow him to wallow in seclusion and self-pity. She convinces Ken that he is not
useless even though sightless, and persuades Ken to move back to the land of the living
and continue his work. Ken begins diligently documenting his progress on the blind flying
apparatus and submits these documents for publication to what I assume are aeronautical
journals. His articles are rejected, but Sheila hides this from him. She takes on numerous
dangerous barnstorming jobs, handing the paycheck over to Ken in order to continue the
ruse that Ken is being paid for his articles.
All is going well, until Ken's plane is repossessed. Ken
discovers that Sheila has been lying to protect him. Ken is bitter and sends her packing.
Hoping to cancel the debt on Ken's plane (and perhaps win
Ken back?), Sheila accepts a dangerous job to fly from Moscow to New York, nonstop, that
pays $25,000. She's doing fine until she reaches New York and a dense, blinding fog
settles over the whole east coast.
With just 20 minutes worth of fuel left (and only 5 minutes
left to the movie), Ken hears a radio announcement about her flight, realizes he loves
her, confiscates his repossessed plane, flies "blind" into the air, finds her,
tells her he loves her, contemplates suicide because he'll never see again (and therefore
be a "real" man in Sheila's eyes), then guides her safely back to the airfield
using his blind flying equipment. Whew!! What an unbelievable ending! Literally!
Oh, and lest I forget to mention the last tender scene...as
the photographers are snapping their pictures, Ken says, "I see flashes of
light." Sheila says, "Of course, they ARE flashes of light. OH!" The end.
VARIETY
Film Review - February 5, 1935
- by "Kauf"
- submitted by Barry Martin
Unconvincing and improbably story here, but handled so expertly and
deftly that it may nose through to moderate grosses. It's a flying
yarn with a new angle - so new, in fact, it pretty ridic. But the
title, the aerial photography and the acting of Myrna Loy and Cary Grant are
assets.
Six writers involved in the story
hatching - evidently all of them let their imaginations go
rampant. Myrna Loy is a trick pilot, circusing around to
earn a living. Cary Grant is a serious aviator with ideas of
world records. He wants to fly to Paris, but at the last
minute an accident happens and he goes blind. That would
seem to crimp his career, but Miss Loy encourages him to keep on
trying. He dictates air stories and articles and sends them
to magazines, with the girl pigeon-holing the yarns and paying off
while he doesn't know. Also, he's working on a new invention
for blind flying. He just about perfects it when his plane
is taken away from him for lack of payments. Then he finds
out all. So he cuts her off and sends her away, and she, to
forget, makes a solo flight from Moscow to New York to establish a
new world's record.
After clearing all of Russia,
Europe and the Atlantic ocean she gets lost over Boston, a fog
sets in and she can't find her way to the airport. She's
lost her bearings and it looks like all is lost. So the
blind man crashes Roosevelt field, breaks down the door of a
hangar, gets a plane, goes up and finds her and guides her down to
safe landing.
Curiously enough the finish, which
is hardest to take from a credulity standpoint, is the best part
of the picture. It's so exciting and so well handled by
Flood that it almost convinces. Mob scenes, air stuff and
all the photography are way above ordinary.
Besides two stellar performances
there is a good supporting cast, outstanding being the work of
Roscoe Karns as Miss Loy's manager, and Hobart Cavanaugh as
Grant's mechanic. Kauf.
NEW YORK TIMES Film Review - February
2, 1935
- by Andre
Sennwald
- submitted by Barry Martin
"Wings in the Dark" is a
pleasantly performed and skillfully filmed melodrama of the
peacetime airways which is hampered by an addle-pated narrative.
High altitudes have a tendency to make scenarists just a trifle
giddy, with the result that the big climax of the Paramount's new
photoplay has the appearance of having been composed during a tail
spin. If you are anxious to view some of the most striking aerial
photography the screen has offered in months, you will have to
endure the episode in which Myrna Loy, the daring aviatrix,
reaches Roosevelt Field at the conclusion of her great flight from
Moscow.
Battling head winds and
impenetrable fog, Miss Loy loses her bearings over the stormy
waters of Long Island just about the time that her gasoline is
running low. Thereupon Cary Grant, the blind aviator, steals a
plane and goes aloft to find her. It is his desperate plan, after
convoying Miss Loy to safety, to fly off into the great unknown so
as not to be a burden to those who love him. Perhaps it is
betraying the Paramount Theatre to reveal that Miss Loy saves her
lover for the altar by smashing her plane into his as they are
about to land, thereupon shocking the nervous system of the
stricken airman so severely that he regains his sight.
The foregoing, as well as the
rather tedious plot machinery which leads up to it, proves to be
disastrous to the work, which is managed with such technical
finesse that it ought to have been among the better pictures. Even
at that, "Wings in the Dark" succeeds in being both
informative and absorbing when it is showing how the blinded
airman invents an instrument board which can be operated by the
sightless. Leo Kieran, one of THE TIMES's aviation specialists,
informs me that both the stunt flying and the aerial photography
in the film are excellent. It is his suspicion, though, that the
ingenious blind-flying system invented by the picture's hero is as
improbable as the great climax.
Miss Loy continues to be the most
refreshing and delightfully real of the cinema's young women, and
she is entirely likable as the lady stunt flyer who helps the
afflicted airman to recapture his faith in himself. Mr. Grant's
pleasant performance as the aviator is also a help. Then there are
Roscoe Karnes as a flashy press agent and Hobart Cavanaugh,
amusingly decked out in a Scotch burr, as the hero's devoted
assistant … Eddie Paul and his orchestra are on the Paramount
stage show. The program also contains a dragout item in the Popeye
cartoon series.
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