Another Dawn

source: Another Dawn

Trailer—Another Dawn

Another Dawn

Colonel John Wister (Ian Hunter) is in charge of a fort in colonial British Sahara, a territory called Dickit. While on leave home to England, he falls for and marries American Julia Ashton (Kay Francis). Captain Denny Roark (Errol Flynn) is his best friend. The start confused me a little. I assumed Errol Flynn to be the leading star of this flick. Upon introducing him, the film goes away from him for the first act. This is trying to be an action romantic epic but it's stuck in old style melodramatic love triangle. There are layers of romantic complications. It feels old style. Errol Flynn's easy charms is as clear as day. The ladies are Hollywood perfect despite being supposed to be in the desert. It's an old melodrama for fans of this type of movies but it's not for me.

Maybe if Curtiz or Walsh or even George Stevens had directed this thing it would have had a chance to be at least somewhat entertaining. But in the always heavy hands of William Dieterle it oughta be called "Another Yawn" as both Kay Francis' and Errol Flynn's considerable rom com skills are wasted and boredom descends about five minutes in, never to be lifted.

The problem with this film is that it is based on a 1919 play from Somerset Maugham and has many of the sentiments of that period. Translated on the screen 20 years later it's a bit stodgy, and viewed many decades later, it seems very dated. The other problem is that the film stars Errol Flynn but it's not an action film. Flynn was a great action actor, but with some few exceptions, all of them later in life, his best work was in action films. The music from Erich Wolfgang Korngold is marvelous, and his work later with Flynn on "Robin Hood" would be one of the best scores ever. If you're a Flynn fan you probably want to see this film, but otherwise it doesn't have much to recommend it.

In Another Dawn, Kay Francis marries Ian Hunter after a whirlwind shipboard romance when he's on leave in Britain. He's an army captain out there patrolling the far reaches of the Indian frontier and he likes to fly a plane in his spare time. She's already had a romance with a flier who was lost. Of course upon arriving in India she discovers she likes his number two man Errol Flynn a whole lot more. In addition Flynn's got a sister on the post, Frieda Inescourt who is crushing out on Hunter, but never tells anyone. Although Errol does have a brief skirmish with the Moslems to fulfill his action image requirement, the film is one gigantic soap opera with the people behaving as we Americans have come to expect in that stiff upper lip British tradition. These characters are way too noble, too self sacrificing because 'they're building a nation' as Ian Hunter so floridly puts it. How the players managed to get through this romantic drivel is beyond me.

I agree with comment #2. It is a story and film from another era and, as such, it was great to have on while I sewed and did wifely work! The people were gorgeous to look at, Kay Francis was excellent, and the idea that people could restrain their emotions and behave like "grown ups" was pleasant. There were a lot of things unsaid and that added to the overall story as the viewer could fill in from their own life experiences. It also means that a child watching it would not get all of the underlying meanings. And that's a good thing. Almost everyone in the cast is a familiar face if you watch old movies. Watch it when it is on and see what they meant when they said "it's a woman's picture."

I watched this movie solely because Errol Flynn was in it. My all time favorite. However I was serendipitously introduced to Kay Francis, one of Hollywood's great female stars. She has since become one of my most adored actresses from a bygone era of great female actresses. Why movie land has not highlighted this movie and these two great film stars together is a mystery to me. Further, it would have been refreshing to see them together on other projects. This movie tugged at my heart as I watched it very late one night. My teenage children thought it was mushy. They were probably on target since they don't get a chance to see REAL acting like this, but rather a lot of sex scenes and nudity. To all E.F. or K.F. aficionado's, rent it, copy it, see it. You'll be glad you did.

While on leave from his desert post somewhere in The Empire, Col. Wister (Ian Hunter) meets an American widow (Kay Francis), falls in love and marries her. He brings her back to his desert outpost, which has been overseen in his absence by Capt. Roark (Errol Flynn). She takes one look at Flynn, and you can probably write the rest. And Col. Wister is a noble, stiff-upper-lip representation of the British Lion (they're good sports). There is no new ground broken in "Another Dawn", it's all been done before. The 3 principals acquit themselves very well and add some polish to a familiar theme. The picture is held together by Hunter and Francis, with Flynn tagging along as eye candy. Good but not spectacularly so, it is a harmless way to pass 75 minutes. ****** 6 of 10