This is a poverty row production that was made by PRC and distributed by United Artists. Although it might have received the benefit of an increased marketing budget with UA pushing it towards an Oscar nomination for its scoring, that still does not mean it is anything more than what it really is: a low-budget affair. It might have begun with a good idea but lacks the overall polish required to draw us in and keep us fully engaged.
The biggest issue I have with VOICE IN THE WIND is the belabored pacing, and the fact that it is all so grimly forced. There is not one humorous supporting character, unless you call the operator of a murder boat (Alexander Granach) funny when he slaps a woman around on the dock. He implies he's striking her the way he would imagine sharks might attack her if he tossed her into the water. Such treatment pales in comparison to the brutality suffered by the main character (Francis Lederer) at the hands of Nazis back in native Czechoslovakia.
Lederer is a pianist who ran afoul of the Third Reich when he performed a forbidden piece of music at a public concert. He was separated from his wife (Sigrid Gurie), then interrogated and beaten. On his way to a concentration camp which we never see because there wasn't enough money to build such a set, he goes crazy and attacks the Nazi guards riding with him on a train. This somehow leads to his escaping with amnesia and winding up in Portugal.
We are not shown how he reached Lisbon since the story quickly jumps ahead. The focus abruptly shifts to Granach's character, whose job it is with his brother (J. Carrol Naish) to smuggle refugees from Europe to the Caribbean island of Guadalupe where they'll wait for a way to get into the U. S. Granach and Naish are extremely dangerous men, and Lederer's fate is sealed when he travels to Guadalupe with them.
Meanwhile, Gurie has also fled to Guadalupe-- great coincidence there-- with a couple of friends (J. Edward Bromberg & Olga Fabian). She has no idea her amnesiac husband is just down the street at a bar playing piano. She hears a haunting tune, and it causes her to think of him. For his part, Lederer still has no idea what his own identity might be or that the wife he had been separated from is only a block away.
The sets are sparsely furnished, and we are supposed to realize how poor and desperate people in Guadalupe are. The stark environment is contrasted with flashbacks where we see Lederer & Gurie's earlier married life in Prague, when they were more affluent.
There is so much cutting back and forth between the past and the present that if one is not paying close attention, it might get rather confusing. The filmmakers make the mistake of ending a flashback and returning to the present with a different character that the one remembering what had happened, which is ridiculous. Adding to the uneven nature of the film is the overuse of pathos in a story that could have been told with a tiny bit of hope.
The music and the acting is as somber as it gets. And of course, Gurie is dying of pneumonia to up the drama, and when she goes out in search of the hombre playing the music, she cannot cross a street without collapsing. Then Lederer comes along and before he can help her, he gets distracted by Naish who stabs him. This leads to the unhappy couple dying on the same bed together. It's too much. But, hey, at least they had Prague.
The biggest issue I have with VOICE IN THE WIND is the belabored pacing, and the fact that it is all so grimly forced. There is not one humorous supporting character, unless you call the operator of a murder boat (Alexander Granach) funny when he slaps a woman around on the dock. He implies he's striking her the way he would imagine sharks might attack her if he tossed her into the water. Such treatment pales in comparison to the brutality suffered by the main character (Francis Lederer) at the hands of Nazis back in native Czechoslovakia.
Lederer is a pianist who ran afoul of the Third Reich when he performed a forbidden piece of music at a public concert. He was separated from his wife (Sigrid Gurie), then interrogated and beaten. On his way to a concentration camp which we never see because there wasn't enough money to build such a set, he goes crazy and attacks the Nazi guards riding with him on a train. This somehow leads to his escaping with amnesia and winding up in Portugal.
We are not shown how he reached Lisbon since the story quickly jumps ahead. The focus abruptly shifts to Granach's character, whose job it is with his brother (J. Carrol Naish) to smuggle refugees from Europe to the Caribbean island of Guadalupe where they'll wait for a way to get into the U. S. Granach and Naish are extremely dangerous men, and Lederer's fate is sealed when he travels to Guadalupe with them.
Meanwhile, Gurie has also fled to Guadalupe-- great coincidence there-- with a couple of friends (J. Edward Bromberg & Olga Fabian). She has no idea her amnesiac husband is just down the street at a bar playing piano. She hears a haunting tune, and it causes her to think of him. For his part, Lederer still has no idea what his own identity might be or that the wife he had been separated from is only a block away.
The sets are sparsely furnished, and we are supposed to realize how poor and desperate people in Guadalupe are. The stark environment is contrasted with flashbacks where we see Lederer & Gurie's earlier married life in Prague, when they were more affluent.
There is so much cutting back and forth between the past and the present that if one is not paying close attention, it might get rather confusing. The filmmakers make the mistake of ending a flashback and returning to the present with a different character that the one remembering what had happened, which is ridiculous. Adding to the uneven nature of the film is the overuse of pathos in a story that could have been told with a tiny bit of hope.
The music and the acting is as somber as it gets. And of course, Gurie is dying of pneumonia to up the drama, and when she goes out in search of the hombre playing the music, she cannot cross a street without collapsing. Then Lederer comes along and before he can help her, he gets distracted by Naish who stabs him. This leads to the unhappy couple dying on the same bed together. It's too much. But, hey, at least they had Prague.