**Possible Spoilers.
Action-packed, high paced escapism. I've seen this movie many times and always get a kick out of it. It's fun Saturday matinée entertainment. It's an obvious war-time propaganda, feel good adventure yarn, and nothing more. Remember it was made in 1942 at the height of the war.
A big budget, ridiculous, Rover Boys episode in the Hogan's Heroes mold. There are obvious big budget values though. First - The cinema's greatest hero and master swashbuckler - Errol Flynn, at the top of his popularity. Second- Ronald Reagan, coming off his biggest hit film "Kings Row" joining the mix. Getting two Warner Bros. film heroes for the price of one -- Captain Blood and Brass Bancroft one-two punch. Not to mention a good music score by Max Steiner. (This is the guy who scored "Gone with the Wind" and "Casablanca") Add a good batch of your Warner stock character actors ie..Alan Hale Arthur Kennedy and Nancy Coleman and you've got fun, exciting action and lots of car chases, daring escapes, impossible odds, good guys versus bad guys...is this starting to sound real familiar? Basically the very same formula Hollywood's cranking out now.
This stuff never gets old, because it's pure escapism and fun. The best scene remains the one with Reagan, where he's in the Kommandant's office and trying to be tricked into revealing secret information, because the Germans think Americans are good businessmen. Reagan spits off a bunch of double-talk nonsense, totally confusing the Kommandant raps him on the jaw, and the boys make their escape.
"Desperate Journey" is fun to watch and doesn't try to be anything more than what is is. Fun. -- "Now to Australia and a crack at those Japs."
Action-packed, high paced escapism. I've seen this movie many times and always get a kick out of it. It's fun Saturday matinée entertainment. It's an obvious war-time propaganda, feel good adventure yarn, and nothing more. Remember it was made in 1942 at the height of the war.
A big budget, ridiculous, Rover Boys episode in the Hogan's Heroes mold. There are obvious big budget values though. First - The cinema's greatest hero and master swashbuckler - Errol Flynn, at the top of his popularity. Second- Ronald Reagan, coming off his biggest hit film "Kings Row" joining the mix. Getting two Warner Bros. film heroes for the price of one -- Captain Blood and Brass Bancroft one-two punch. Not to mention a good music score by Max Steiner. (This is the guy who scored "Gone with the Wind" and "Casablanca") Add a good batch of your Warner stock character actors ie..Alan Hale Arthur Kennedy and Nancy Coleman and you've got fun, exciting action and lots of car chases, daring escapes, impossible odds, good guys versus bad guys...is this starting to sound real familiar? Basically the very same formula Hollywood's cranking out now.
This stuff never gets old, because it's pure escapism and fun. The best scene remains the one with Reagan, where he's in the Kommandant's office and trying to be tricked into revealing secret information, because the Germans think Americans are good businessmen. Reagan spits off a bunch of double-talk nonsense, totally confusing the Kommandant raps him on the jaw, and the boys make their escape.
"Desperate Journey" is fun to watch and doesn't try to be anything more than what is is. Fun. -- "Now to Australia and a crack at those Japs."