Night Flight

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Based on the novel of the same name by Antoine de St. Exupery

A drama about the first planes to fly across South America at night, connecting cities to Europe that much faster.

A few months ago, I was talking to Ottersis, and she mentioned a short film about the Flying Codonas, a family of aerialists to whom she was briefly related by marriage. This film is the only existing footage of them, and she was desirous of seeing it and disappointed that it wasn’t available to stream anywhere.

Librarian that I am, I immediately got online and found the short on Amazon as part of the special features included with this movie (why? I don’t know), which was very reasonably priced. So she got it, watched the short, was very pleased with it, and brought the dvd with her when she visited so we could see it. But of course we had to watch the movie as well.

The short about the Flying Codonas was really good, they really were amazing. The movie? not so much.

For such a star-studded cast (Gable! Loy! Hayes! Two Barrymores! and MORE!), and such a potentially dramatic subject, AND having been taken from a book by St. Exupery, you’d think it would be a good movie, full of drama, human interest, and good writing.

You’d be wrong.

This movie was dull and pedantic. Even the dramatic scenes (where someone dies…but who?) barely kept our interest. There was lots of filler (which Mr. Otter says is true to the book, as one of the themes of the original book is how the connections by air change everyone’s lives in the country) of people and places with an airplane shadow moving across them. The plot was predictable (okay, we had the wrong guy pegged to die, but still…) and not well written, and the only drama was wondering whether or not we’d make it to the end of the movie, or go do something more fun (Otter and Mr. Otter stuck it out, Ottersis didn’t.)

If you want a wonderful movie about the early days of aviation with a star-studded cast, drama, good writing, action, romance and everything else…don’t watch this, put on Only Angels Have Wings again. And if you do, I’ll come and join you, I love that movie.