Wings of the Morning

While Korda was in the process of constructing his own Technicolor processing plant at Denham he in the meantime provided his studio facilities for this pioneering project, the very first Technicolor feature made outside Hollywood.

Inevitably it's quite a hybrid, with an American director and cameraman, an American leading man pretending to be Canadian and a French leading lady pretending to be a Spanish gypsy pretending to be a lad (a deception partly facilitated by wearing slightly less rouge on her cheeks than in the rest of the film).

Since most of the exteriors were shot in Ireland the colour scheme is inevitably predominantly green, but colour is occasionally used at the service of the narrative as when the heroine is spectacularly transformed by slipping into a burgundy gown, the progress by jockey Steve Donohue in the Epsom Derby is made possible to follow by his ochre shirt, followed by the dramatic climactic appearance of the bright red objection flag.

Archival interest is provided by the partiticipation of tenor John McCormack and tipster Ras Prince Monolulu.

Wings of the Morning is both the title of the film and the name of a gypsy horse who rides in the English Derby at Epsom Downs. It was the first modern technicolor film to be shot in the British Isles. To insure quality cinematographer Ray Rennahan who was THE color guy in Hollywood was brought over and he did a first rate job. I guess for good luck Henry Fonda who appeared in the first outdoor technicolor film in the USA came over to appear in this one. In the tradition of Americans appearing in British productions, Fonda plays a Canadian horse trainer with the Irish name of Kerry Gilfallen replete with his Nebraska twang.

In fact most of this British production is shot in Ireland and I hope that Wings of the Morning is available to folks in Ireland in any format. Their country is really nicely captured in some really lush greens. And there is some nice color footage of London and the Epsom Derby in the middle Thirties.

There are two stories, a brief prologue involving gypsy princess Annabella and the Irish Lord Clontarf played by Leslie Banks. They wed against all convention and soon after, Banks is killed in a riding accident. Of course most of the family snubs the widow and she returns to the gypsies.

Fast forward some forty years and Annabella is now playing her own great granddaughter and she's back in Ireland having fled Spain from the revolution going on there. She flees like Katharine Hepburn did in Sylvia Scarlett, in the guise of a boy and fools everybody including horse trainer Henry Fonda.

Of course the romance develops and a pair of horses get trained and primed for the Epsom Derby. Horse stories are no different in the UK then they are the USA and if you've seen enough of them on the silver screen you have an idea how the rest of the film goes.

Champion jockey Steve Donoghue makes an appearance in Wings of the Morning and lucky indeed we are to have a technicolor filmed appearance of the great John McCormack who favors us with four songs sung at a party scene at Clontarf castle. McCormack was an icon in many an Irish and Irish American household. A great concert singer, he and an Italian tenor named Caruso share equal credit in developing the record industry as they both signed with Edison's fledgling RCA Victor label back in the day. You couldn't find too many Italian households without a Caruso record back in the day nor many Irish households without a gramophone and McCormack records to play on them.

During his sequence McCormack sings and reads material, lyrics I'm sure he must have sang a gazillion times. My guess is that he was 53 when Wings of the Morning was made and may have been sustaining memory problems. McCormack died in 1945 and had not sung for several years at that point.

Wings of the Morning were it not for McCormack and technicolor would be a rather ordinary race track story. Still it's good entertainment and for folks in Ireland, a must.

"Wings of the Morning" (1937) has the distinction of being the first Technicolor film shot in the British isles, made when the great cinematographer Jack Cardiff was operating a camera. It also introduced the Irish tenor John McCormack to the public. Wings of the Morning might have been important for being French actress Annabella's first English-speaking film, but Annabella was two years away from becoming very famous for another reason which basically stopped her film career.

Annabella has a dual role here, actually a triple role, in a film that takes place first in the 1800s and then in the present day. First, she is Marie, a gypsy, who is with other gypsies in Ireland in 1869. The Lord Clontarf (Lesley Banks) gives the gypsies rights to live on his land in perpetuity. He falls in love with Marie and the two marry, a union that is definitely controversial. When Lord Clontarf is killed in a fall while riding, Marie jumps on the gypsy caravan, and ever the roamers, they leave the area.

Fifty years later, Annabella plays Maria, Duchess of Leyva, who is Marie's great-granddaughter and engaged to Don Diego (Teddy Underdown). The gypsies must flee Spain due to a revolution, so they return to the Clontarf land in Ireland. Marie (now played by Irene Vanbrugh) is worried that Maria will not get out of Spain, but she does, dressed as a boy. While so dressed, she meets horse trainer Kerry Gilfallen (Fonda), a Canadian.

Eventually he discovers he's a she and falls for her. Maria has traded her great-grandmother's horse, Wings of the Morning to Kerry, not realizing the importance of the animal. Marie intends to enter it in a race in order to win money for Maria's dowry.

Henry Fonda was such a handsome young man, and always a good actor, but he doesn't come off as Canadian with that drawl of his. Despite being new to English, Annabella does a very effective job in all of her roles - she was, after all, a huge star in France. Singer John McCormack had a beautiful Irish tenor, but what a bore - no career in movies for him.

As far as the film itself, it's an interesting story but in the end, not a great film. The color isn't as sharp as we're used to today, but it doesn't diminish the incredible beauty of the Irish countryside.

Annabella met actor Tyrone Power on the set of Suez in 1938 and the couple married in 1939. Their boss, Darryl F. Zanuck, did everything he could to break them up -- he offered Annabella some films that were to be made in Europe -- but she refused to leave Power. Once they married, the star buildup for Annabella stopped. She would star on Broadway, work for the war effort, do radio, and a production of "Liliom" with her husband, finally returning to France after they were divorced in 1948. From what she said in interviews -- je ne regrette rien.

In the late 19th century a Spanish gypsy princess (Annabella) falls in love and marries a nobleman (Leslie Banks) but he dies shortly after in a riding accident. She returns to Spain, but 40 years later descendents of the couple (Henry Fonda and Annabella in a dual role) meet and fall in love with their relationship also revolved around horses and horse racing.

This Irish set romancer is best known for being the first British three strip Technicolor feature film and one of only 9 made by Britain in the 1930s. It was also the film in which Hollywood star Henry Fonda met Frances Ford Seymour, the woman who would become his wife and the mother of Peter and Jane while they were filming on the set at Denham Studios where the film was in part shot. The film also benefits from a cameo by opera singer and tenor John McCormack, a cross dressing heroine and some good looking location work.

Although there had been earlier British colour films in other processes, this was the first in technicolour.Obviously Fox spent the money on the cast and colour,as the story is second rate. Lots of lovely country views and John Mccornick singing away.Curiously he keeps on looking at a small book for the lyrics.A very experienced cast many who had been in films since early silent films.