There's a pomposity to this movie that might be laughable in lesser hands than Clarence Brown's. In his, it seems simply a misfire: John Barrymore standing alone is dramatic side-lighting, his back to the camera, the board of directors shadows to the right; Lionel a clerk trying to act big; Robert Montgomery as the cynical, poetical pilot with his evening clothes beneath his flying suit. They all fall prey to the fact that the Antoine de Sainte-Expury work this is based on tries to be abstract and poetical, exactly the opposite the strengths of movies, and that the writer could not write characters, only types, and everyone in this period was in awe of the man. He was a real aristocrat!
It's a great cast and the issues it raises are real. Brown, despite some good work, was not the muscular sort of director that this movie calls for. Victor Fleming might have been able to handle it, or John Ford: cut down on Oliver Marsh's shadow-filled portraiture, have John Barrymore ease up on the tough, lecturing mode, or at least modulate it in some parts to show it's a front he's putting on for effect. It's odd that Brown didn't do that.
It's a great cast and the issues it raises are real. Brown, despite some good work, was not the muscular sort of director that this movie calls for. Victor Fleming might have been able to handle it, or John Ford: cut down on Oliver Marsh's shadow-filled portraiture, have John Barrymore ease up on the tough, lecturing mode, or at least modulate it in some parts to show it's a front he's putting on for effect. It's odd that Brown didn't do that.