DANGEROUS MOONLIGHT
(RKO British)
HE original music which runs through this British picture was to me its most enjoyable feature, though I expect that others will prefer
the Spitfires which chase Nazi bombers out of the English skies in one of the concluding sequences. The musical score is by Richard Addinsell, and I hope that
his Warsaw Symphony has been recorded separately and may be heard some time on the air. As for the plot, it is largely a collection of clichés made fairly acceptable by the sensitive and intelligent direction of Brian Desmond Hurst, and the photography of Georges Perinal. The elusive theme of the Warsaw Symphony opens and closes the picture as the hero, a great Polish pianist and aviator named Radetzky (Anton Walbrook), who is in an English hospital suffering from shock and loss of memory caused by an air smash, gropes for and finally succeeds
in recovering the melody of this symphony which he has composed-and with it recovers his health, his memory, and his wife (Sally Grey). In between those hospital sequences we get the story of how Radetzky began to compose the music during the bombing of Warsaw, how he then met the American girl who later became his wife, how he escaped from Poland to America, made a triumphant recital tour of the States, was continually torn by the conflict between his art and his patriotism, finally decided that his first duty was to fight and not to play, was estranged from his
wife as a result, went to England, joined the Polish Air Squadron, flew a Spitfire against the Messerschmitts, crashedand there, some 80 minutes later, we are back almost whence we started. Most of the time I was just sitting up attentively, but I think I'll give the film a handclap because the music deserves it; so does the performance of Derek de Marney as a charming, blarneying Irishman who is the hero’s best friend. And, as I’ve already mentioned, so do the director and cameraman, operating under difficult wartime conditions.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19420417.2.30.1.2
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 6, Issue 147, 17 April 1942, Page 15
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340DANGEROUS MOONLIGHT New Zealand Listener, Volume 6, Issue 147, 17 April 1942, Page 15
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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