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Sunday, April 5, 2015

Wings In The Dark (1935)

A daredevil aviatrix (Myrna Loy) is attracted to a daring pilot (Cary Grant). But their romance is just in the beginning stages when he is blinded in an accident. She begins to take an active presence in his life but keeps it from him that she is footing most of the bills since he's in financial straits. Pauline Kael once said, "If we've got so used to the absence of stars that we no longer think about it much, we've also lost one of the great pleasures of moviegoing: watching incandescent people up there, more intense and dazzling than people we ordinarily encounter in life". The reason I bring up Kael's quote is that Grant and Loy are the sole reason for watching a routine aerial romance like WINGS IN THE DARK. Even if they're not at their best (and they're not), they're still Grant and Loy and their screen presence alone (though Grant hadn't yet perfected his) make the movie eminently watchable even as you realize, it's not very good. One can bask in the pleasure of watching them do their stuff even though the material is not worthy of them. Directed by James Flood. With Dean Jagger, Roscoe Karns and Hobart Cavanaugh.

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