Mon 30 Jul 2018
A Movie Review by Jonathan Lewis: FLIGHT TO FURY (1964).
Posted by Steve under Action Adventure movies , Reviews[9] Comments
FLIGHT TO FURY. Filipinas Productions / Lippert Pictures, 1964. Dewey Martin, Fay Spain, Jack Nicholson, Joseph Estrada, Vic Diaz, Jacqueline Hellman. Screenwriters: Monte Hellman, Jack Nicholson, Fred Roos. Director: Monte Hellman.
Filmed in the Philippines back to back with Back Door to Hell (reviewed here ), Flight to Fury is a low budget crime film that, while nothing spectacular, has some interesting sequences and hints of genius to come. Directed by Monte Hellman, and with a screenplay written by Jack Nicholson, the movie has a fatalistic sensibility from start to finish. This is largely due to some terrific hardboiled dialogue and compelling performances by Nicholson as a cynical diamond thief, and Filipino actor Vic Diaz as a sleazy criminal who likewise has illicit gains on his mind.
Although it takes a while for the movie’s plot to come into sharp focus, Flight to Fury soon reveals itself to be a caper film. A ragtag group of individuals are enclosed together on a small aircraft. Each seems to be hiding a secret. Or secrets. When the plane goes down in a remote jungle, it becomes clear that the pilot was smuggling diamonds. Four of the survivors, all male apart from one woman who is more than willing to employ her seductive charms to get what she wants, are soon struggling for possession of the diamonds that the now deceased pilot had stashed in his luggage.
And if you think surviving a crash is bad, just wait until some guerrillas stumble upon the group and take them captive. What happens next is both predictable and rather downbeat, with an obligatory firefight between the group and their captors as well as a final Western-style showdown between two men for control of the diamonds.
In the end, what makes Flight to Fury worth a look is that it paints a stark picture of a fallen world in which no one wins, everyone loses, and there are no heroes.
July 30th, 2018 at 10:10 pm
Strangely enough, while I can picture various scenes of this movie very vividly, as well as the three players shown, I have no idea what Dewey Martin, the nominal star of the film, looks like.
July 30th, 2018 at 11:03 pm
Fred Roos switched to production and produced The Godfather, Apocalypse Now, Marie Antoinette, and many more successful films. As the final paragraph I could not disagree more. There are heroes, everything is not hopeless. Fight for it.
And there must be many shots of Dewey martin online. In the mid fifties he was heavily promoted.
July 30th, 2018 at 11:50 pm
True enough, Barry. Heroes do exist, and we’re in real trouble if we start thinking otherwise. But Jon’s final paragraph describes the movie to a T.
It’s not a great movie overall and may not even be a good one, but the ending is as bleak as any that I’ve seen in a good long while. In that regard it’s more out and out “noir†than many of the classics in the field.
July 31st, 2018 at 11:10 am
I sometimes use the phrase “a Lippert film and therefore beneath contempt” but the fact is, some of this stuff is uniquely enjoyable.
July 31st, 2018 at 5:27 pm
Yes, every once in a while some actual talent got involved, even if the money supply wasn’t.
July 31st, 2018 at 8:15 pm
Steve,
Dewey Martin is Kirk Douglas younger partner in THE BIG RIVER and the bright young sergeant who comes up with all the ideas in THE THING always manipulating commander Kenneth Tobey. Howard Hawks was pushing his career at that time.
As Barry said he was highly promoted, but ultimately it didn’t take, a shame since he was a personable screen personality.
Interesting how Nicholson seems to have seen his screen persona at the time.
July 31st, 2018 at 8:56 pm
In answer to the Unasked Question:
Remember the early Twilight Zone in which a crew of astronauts crash-land on a spit of desert, and they go all survival-of-the-fittest on each other, and the Last Guy Left discovers (SPOILER) that they never left Earth?
Dewey Martin was the Last Guy Left.
If memory serves, he got top billing in that one.
July 31st, 2018 at 10:57 pm
I watched this movie way back in January. I should have taken Barry’s advice back in Comment 2 and looked for a photo of Dewey Martin online. Try as I may I cannot put a face to the name.
August 23rd, 2018 at 6:07 pm
THIS JUST IN:
From the Obit Patrol, I learn that Dewey Martin passed on this past March, age 94.
First I’ve heard of it.
That’s Life!