Flight for Freedom (1943) User Reviews (6)

A flight of fancy

[Prismark10 · 5/10 · 22 October 2016]

This film is a rather creaky melodrama inspired by the Amelia Earhart story. Rosalind Russell plays Tonie Carter who has to put up with prejudice as she learns to fly but pretty soon is setting flight records.

Carter falls in love with ace pilot Randy Britton (Fred MacMurray) who is one of the people who is sexist to her at the beginning but they then drift apart. However she then plans to race around the world solo after she promises to marry her flight instructor Paul Turner (Herbert Marshall.)

As the film was made during the second world war, there are elements of propaganda weaved into the plot as Carter is agrees to undertake a secret mission on behalf of the navy where she would get lost in her flight and the rescue mission would allow reconnaissance pictures to betaken under the noses of the Japanese. This mission reunited her with Britton who declares to Carter what she means to him.

The film really did not start off well, rather plodding I thought but it does get better in the final segments and like the rather campy but sinister turn by the Japanese hotel manager, who seemed to have channelled the great Peter Lorre.

Poor Paul Turner he was so happy to have snagged Carter has his fiancé but it was never going to happen.

Sign of the Times

[yachan1976 · 11 September 2004]

Movies like these were typical of the time. You must put this movie in that context. Too many critics compare the old movies and their politics with today's views. Flight for Freedom like so many films in the 1940's had a purpose; to win the hearts and minds of the average American who may have had doubts about why we were fighting. Amelia Earhart was an icon of the American spirit and therefore, by demonizing the Japanese military who may or may not have killed her; the US government could whip up a frenzy of resolve to fight the war on to the finish. Ironically, espionage is a capital offense in most countries and it was typical to be awarded a long sentence or a possible death penalty. But it makes good drama, since the thought of killing a female for such a crime is yet another possible reason for FDR to get the US into the war.

This is a fun Movie

[firesprinklers · 8/10 · 24 March 2006]

This is a fun movie of thirties aviation. The mid air between Randy and Tonie is laughable and fake. That aside I enjoy the tone and the simple enjoyment of the movie for what it was, a WWII war movie. Randy (Fred Mac Murry) and Tonie fall for each other with the background of thirties type air racing and breaking records as their goals. Then when a special assignment comes up to look for a "missing pilot" over the Japanese mandated islands, they both volunteer. Overall this is one of my favorite movies for this type. The Japanese hotel manager - as a Jap spy- is so typical as to be laughable. But this movie is not about realism or political correctness.

Obviously cynics would not like it.

[mrskywalker · 19 January 2001]

This film is influenced by the patriotism during the great struggle of The Second World War. It is accurate in depicting the spirit of the great Emelia Earhart. A film made today might choose to focus on other aspects but that is more an indication of the difference in attitudes from the 40s to now. This is an interesting film for youngsters and adults.

Noble sacrifice

[jarrodmcdonald-1 · 13 February 2022]

In some regards this movie reminds me of NURSE EDITH CAVELL (1939) where we have a brave single woman doing her part to advance the side of the allies during a world war. Like Nurse Cavell, FLIGHT FOR FREEDOM's Tonie Carter is engaged in an undercover mission to thwart the enemy. In this instance she is a flyer recruited to assist with U. S. Navy espionage against the Japanese before the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Tonie Carter is more than a bit similar to Amelia Earhart, and the film is considered a not so veiled account of Earhart's career as a world-renowned pilot. It goes into speculative territory in the last part, advancing a theory that Earhart ahem Tonie Carter went down in the Pacific because the Japanese planned to capture her. Whether this is a fully fictional account contrived by a Hollywood scenarist, I cannot say...but it does seem plausible and I would suspect there is some truth in it.

In the initial sequences of the film we watch Tonie, played by Rosalind Russell, proving herself as an ace aviatrix. Her destiny is to cross paths with two influential men who each become smitten with her and want to marry her.

One is her business partner (Herbert Marshall) and the other one is a cocky aeronaut (Fred MacMurray) that she feels the need to compete with at nearly every turn. Just when you think a real romance will occur, she takes off on another whirlwind flight. She breaks their hearts while breaking records, and her high-spirited adventures bring admiration from all sorts of people. One fan is a comical Italian restaurant owner (Eduardo Ciannelli) that allows her to sit in a men-only backroom in his establishment.

I found the aerial sequences, some of them shot with miniatures, to be quite convincing. But what put it across for me was the sincerity and focus that Miss Russell exhibits throughout the picture. She also seems more soft-spoken here and is minus her customary wisecracks, which helps to convey the gravity of the story.

I do think the filmmakers glossed over some things- like how does she stay awake for long periods in the air by herself? And how does she not have to go to the bathroom on a solo 12 hour flight?

Back on the ground she returns to a life of social get-togethers and those two men who are still clamoring for her attention. Perhaps the most unrealistic aspect of the film is how perfect Miss Russell's make-up remains throughout the proceedings; even the greasepaint dabbed on to her face seems perfectly applied.

It is like Russell is channeling Bette Davis in some scenes, due to her resolve to be her own woman no matter what the cost may be personally. This is a patriotic movie but it is also a movie made for women audience goers starring an actress who specialized in strong career-minded female characters.

As such it is one of her best performances. Russell does particularly well in those last shots of Tonie Carter on her suicide mission into the Pacific Ocean. She does not panic as she tries to evade the enemy and help the U. S. military towards a later victory, that was not yet assured in 1943 when FLIGHT FOR FREEDOM was released. She makes a supreme noble sacrifice.

We can forgive a lot for this one scene.

[dominim · 12 August 2000]

The film is badly directed and acted propaganda but all this is put in the shade by an extraordinary scene towards the end.

I don't want to spoil the plot, so I will just say:

The pilot heroine of the film Tonie Carter finds herself on a remote pacific island with a strange mission ahead of her, over the course of one night on the island, a lot changes in her life, both in considering her past and her present situation, and she decides on her course of action for when she leaves the island the next morning.

This scene is mysterious and evocative, there is very little detail and almost everything we see is significant so the island takes on the quality of a dream. The various characters which come her way seem like ghosts; their significance is in what they whisper to her, reminds her of her responsibilities and memories.

Now comes the ending of the film but with an unforseen direction born of the night on the island, this leads to some bitter sweet ironies which undercut in a way the propaganda of the film.

So this is another one to add to the class of awful films which emerge with the most imaginative visions, but by some who-knows-how accident, its certainly not due to the director or actors. In this respect its much like 'The Eye of the Beholder '(1999 )by Stephan Elliot.

If Lothar Mendes was aware of what he created I wonder how he felt, pleased but perhaps also a little guilty and frustrated.