WINGS AND THE WOMAN

New Zealand Listener, Volume 8, Issue 186, 15 January 1943, Page 17

WINGS AND THE WOMAN

(R.K.O. Radio)

WHATEVER he was or is (and this film quite plainly suggests that he was several things), Captain Jim Mollison,

now a Transatlantic ferry pilot, cannot be thin-skinned. My first reaction on seeing Wings and the Woman (originally entitled They Flew Alone) was amazement that the producers had been able to get away with such a libel on Mollison, but later I came across a statement by him that he had, given his consent but not his co-operation to this picture about him and Amy Johnson. He mildly commented: "I feel that the drinking in cocktail bars, the breaking of appointments and so forth, acquire a larger proportion in a story like this than, _taken by themselves, they might have in real life. I am leading a steady life and I don’t want the idea to get about that I am a dissipated, unreliable fellow." My own comment is that it won’t be the fault if that idea doesn’t get about. And in spite of Mr. Mollison’s broadminded attitude, I still think it was unfair of the producers, if not inaccurate, to present him as a drunkard and a philanderer while going out of their way to idealise (and almost whitewash) the late Amy Johnson: Surely there were faults on both sides? Anyway, both personalities are well served by the stars who portray them on the screen. Amy J ohnson was no beauty, but Anna Neagle is, and whether the portrayal of character which she presents is_ strictly accurate or not, it is done with warmth and sincerity. As Mollison, Robert Newton is also painstaking and very competent and he does somehow manage to convey that the flyer was not lacking. in the virtues of courage and honesty, in spite of the insistence on his more spectacular -vices.. This fact, coupled with the glaring lop-sidedness of the treatment, may indeed have the perverse effect of arousing considerable sympathy for Mollison. It probably had that effect on me. | Being more fair-minded. (perhaps) than air-minded, I found much greater interest in the personal relationships of the famous flyers, and in: the acting of the stars, than in the monotonous succession of montage shots of whirling propellers, maps, newspaper headlines, applauding crowds, dust-storms, rain-storms, take-offs, and crack-ups which occupy such a large part of the footage. After

all, one record-breaking flight looks pretty much like another from a theatre seat.. In fact,.in spite of the final ‘pompous note of dedication to the Waafs and other patriotic tie-ups, I am _ rather doubtful whether there really was enough in the lives of Mollison and Miss Johnson to justify such a long and pretentious film-but then, as I say, I am not particularly air-minded.