Fri 17 Oct 2014
A Movie Review by Jonathan Lewis: EDGE OF DARKNESS (1943).
Posted by Steve under Films: Drama/Romance , Reviews , War Films[3] Comments
EDGE OF DARKNESS. Warner Brothers, 1943. Errol Flynn, Ann Sheridan, Walter Huston, Nancy Coleman, Helmut Dantine, Judith Anderson, Ruth Gordon, John Beal, Morris Carnovsky. Director: Lewis Milestone.
Many of Errol Flynn’s movies have a sense of lightness to them. That’s often what makes them such watchable, timeless films. Flynn is most often cast alongside two comical companions or in singular pursuit of a lovely girl who initially despises him, but eventually comes to love him.
He’s the gentleman forced into fighting for a just cause. Think the swashbuckling Captain Blood (1935) or the epic, iconic Dodge City (1939). They are adventure stories, where Flynn portrays the elegant good guy who defeats the bad guy and, in the end, gets the girl. But there’s a sense that all the fisticuffs and gunfighting have been in good fun, even if more than a few people have gotten banged up or shot down along the way.
Edge of Darkness, while an exceptionally good war movie, is neither fun, nor would one would call a happy film. Indeed, it’s one Errol Flynn movie where he doesn’t portray a particularly elegant man and there aren’t any bad guys, at least not in the lighthearted sense of the term.
In Edge of Darkness, a story about Norwegian resistance fighters during the Second World War, the proverbial bad guys – the Nazis – aren’t merely bad. They are evil. And they can’t be reasoned with, tricked into changing their ways, or laughed aside. They must be killed. It’s this premise, coupled with great cinematography and superb performances by Flynn, Ann Sheridan, Walter Huston, and Helmut Dantine, that set this beautifully gritty Warner Brothers war film apart from other anti-Nazi films of the era.
Directed by Lewis Milestone with a script by Robert Rossen, Edge of Darkness is a very powerful film about a simple man’s determination to free his country from the grip of totalitarianism. Flynn portrays Gunnar Brogge, a Norwegian resistance leader in the small fishing village of Trollness. He’s determined to get weapons from the British and to use them to strike against the Nazis occupying his town.
Brogge’s commitment to methodical planning is tested when he discovers that a Nazi soldier violated his girlfriend, Karen Stensgard (Ann Sheridan). Further straining the already tense situation is the fact that Karen’s brother collaborated with the Nazis in Oslo and that her father, Dr. Martin Stensgard (Huston) is not fully committed to violent action against the German invaders.
There are some very tense moments in this well-acted film, including a scene in which Brogge, along with others, is forced to dig his own grave — literally. The most memorable scene in the film, however, may belong to actor Morris Carnovksy, a veteran of the Yiddish theater and Broadway. Carnovsky, portrays Sixtus Andresen, a town schoolteacher who refuses to yield to the demands of the top Nazi thug in Trollness, Captain Koenig (Dantine). It’s a poignant reminder than individuals do have a choice when faced with tyranny.
October 18th, 2014 at 5:37 pm
This one has that great Beau Geste opening as the German gunboat arrives and finds the streets empty ala Fort Zinderhuf. The film then unfolds with the viewer expecting a dark ending (though more of an Arsene Lupin type, Flynn is still fairly dark in UNCERTAIN GLORY, a darker and less gentlemanly role though no Gunnar Brogge).
Most of the films about Norway were this dark (COMMANDOS STRIKE AT DAWN with Paul Muni) during the war. The Norwegians were exceptionally tough fighters and the Nazi retaliations against them exceptionally hard. Though obviously the film and William Wood’s novel are dramatized much of what happens is true including the mass graves dug by the victims. There is much less melodrama in this film than modern viewers might think. This, THE MOON IS DOWN, THIS LAND IS MINE, THE COMMANDOS STRIKE AT DAWN, THE SEVENTH CROSS, and even UNCERTAIN GLORY are closer to reality than many of us like to admit of the films about the occupation made during or around the war.
The German occupation as shown here is not far off the reality. They may seem like cartoon villains today, but they were every bit this evil, just more banal as real evil often is, and the most famous traitor of the war after England’s Lord Haw Haw and France’s Petain was surely Norway’s Quisling.
This is in many ways Warner’s darkest and most violent war film, but curiously reassuring at the end. Huston, Ruth Gordon, Dantine, Coleman, Carnovsky as mentioned, and Dame Judith Anderson all give fine performances in the film, and Flynn and Sheridan manage to overcome their obvious Hollywood glamor to play more down to earth roles. It’s one of Flynn’s better serious performances since he is allowed none of the bravado, wit, charm, or lust for life of so many of his roles.
I think this one is unjustly neglected among powerful war films with something to say. It is hard to say anything this grim is a favorite in the sense of entertainment, but it certainly is one I never miss.
October 18th, 2014 at 7:09 pm
“Flynn and Sheridan manage to overcome their obvious Hollywood glamor to play more down to earth roles.” Jon and I watched this one together, and I was surprised — and pleasantly so — to discover how true a statement that is.
For a film as dark this one is — given the opening scene, with most of the rest of the film shown in flashback — it was also a pleasure to watch. It was intended to make a powerful statement, and at that it succeeds very well.
October 19th, 2014 at 11:17 am
Re: THE SEVENTH CROSS, That film and novel (I’ve read it 3 times) takes place in Nazi Germany before World War II. While the film portrays the character played by Spencer Tracy as being in a concentration camp for being “anti Nazi”, there are enough references in the novel to The Party to indicate the character was a Communist.