FLIGHT FOR FREEDOM

New Zealand Listener, Volume 9, Issue 218, 27 August 1943, Page 14

FLIGHT FOR FREEDOM

(RKO Radio)

ORE film heroines than anybody could remember have been faced with the problem of choosing between two

men, Dut tew have been prtesented with such a conclusive and at the same time such a patriotic way out of the difficulty as Rosalind Russell is in Flight for Freedom. She is a worldfamous woman flyer. The U.S. Navy want her to "lose" herself deliberately near some Japanese-mandated territory in the Pacific (the time is prePearl Harbour), so that they can have a valid excuse to cruise around the area while searching for her and at the same time take some nice aerial photographs of Japanese fortifications. But the Japs, getting wind of the scheme, inform Miss Russell that they know where to look, and will find her first. In this situation, how can she best serve her country? Confronted also with the embarrassing necessity of making a choice between Fred MacMurray and Herbert Marshall, both of whom have fairly good claims on her heart, the heroine decides to kill two birds with one stone-and one of the birds is herself. Diving her plane straight into the Pacific near the Japanese islands, she ensures that nobody will be able to find her, nobody will be able to marry her. Miss Russell’s dilemma and her solution of it is the only remarkable thing about the picture, and since this actually occupies only a few minutes of running (Continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) ° time, it is not a particularly remarkable picture. The rest is just a routine buildup on the old triangular basis. Fred MacMurray still talking nineteen to the ‘dozen, is in ome corner as the slick, daring-and I think obnoxious-young flyer whose habit is to kiss and forget; Herbert Marshall is in another corner as the safe, stodgy plane designer who kisses once and remembers for ever; and Miss Russell, of course, is at the apex of the triangle. MacMurray sweeps her off her feet arid then drops her; Marshall (good old Herbert) picks her up, brushes her down, helps to make her a world-celebrity and eventually extracts a promise that she will marry him after just one more round-the-world flight. But only the most innocent of picturegoers will imagine for a moment that there is the slightest chance of the promise being fulfilled: it is the Marshall tradition to suffer nobly and be rejected, end nothing short of a new deal in Hollywood will break it. : So, when the heroine sets out on the world flight, which includes her secret assignment for the Navy, and comes down in New Guinea to pick up the navigator who is going to help her get "lost," she is very much more surprised than the audience to discover that the navigator is none other than the nowpenitent, still-passionate Mr. MacMurray. Equally as disconcerting is her discovery that the Japs are wise to what is going on. Through a night of tropical storm, Miss Russell struggles with the conflict in her heart, the claims of patriotism, and the ardent advances of Mr. MacMurray. With the dawn she makes her sacrificial decision. The rest you