The Last Flight (1931)
Directed by William Dieterle

Film Review

Having distinguished himself as both an actor and filmmaker in his native Germany, William Dieterle began his highly productive period in Hollywood with this idiosyncratic portrait of what Ernest Hemingway referred to as the Lost Generation.  The Last Flight is far from being Dieterle's best work - it is poorly scripted and dated by the limitations of early sound cinema - but it nonetheless offers one of cinema's most authentic depictions of post-war disconnection for those who, having had all their illusions smashed to bits in WWI, fell apart on their return to civilian life.  The film is as evocative of the Jazz Age as F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, and it would doubtless qualify as a masterpiece were it not for some atrocious dialogue and an overly melodramatic ending that is far from convincing.

The eccentric carefree humour that runs through The Last Flight provides a welcome distraction from its clumsy attempts at moralising (which must have sounded pretty dire even to a 1930s audience).  An attractive ensemble cast headed by Richard Barthelmess, David Manners and Helen Chandler smooth the edges of a pretty risible screenplay and the result feels like a forerunner of the classic Hollywood screwball comedy.  Most of the dialogue exchanges scarcely make any sense at all and show that the protagonists have only the most tenuous grip on reality, a poignant reflection of the indelible psychological harm caused by the war.  Made before the Production Code came into force, the film also gets away with some pretty risqué allusions, of the kind that would be unthinkable just a few years later. 

Whilst it was well-recrived by the critics, The Last Flight was only a moderate success at the American box office.  John Monk Saunders, who wrote the screenplay and the novel on which it was based, subsequently made it into a popular Broadway play entitled Nikki.  Cast in the role of Cary Lockwood in the original production of the stageplay was a young British actor named Archie Leach, who immediately afterwards adopted his character's first name and soon found fame under a new moniker - Cary Grant.

Film Synopsis

France, 1919.  After the First World War, two American aviators, Cary Lockwood and Shep Lambert, are released from hospital, still emotionally and physically scarred by their experience of airborne combat.  The two men ignore the advice of their doctor to return home and instead head off for Paris, hoping to drown their sorrows in drink.  Here, they hook up with two other war veterans, Bill and Francis, and together they begin prowling the city's hedonistic hotspots.  In an upmarket night club, they meet Nikki, a wealthy young woman who appears strangely detached from reality.  Although they can make little sense of anything she says, the four men warm to Nikki and take it upon themselves to chaperone her.  The happy ensemble is troubled by an unwelcome interloper, who seems determined to have his wicked way with Nikki.  The party moves on to Portugal, where a series of disasters will bring them back to reality with a bang...