User reviews

Fine movie for what it is but 'what it is' won't be to everyone's tastes. Leonard Maltin's Film Guide calls it an adventure story but that's not really accurate. There's very little action in this film. This is a melodrama, a soaper even, as evidenced by the fact it stars Kay Francis. She was one of the queens of the melodrama in the '30s, often torn between two men as she is here. The plot is trite. Francis plays a woman who lost her pilot fiancé in an accident. She meets honorable and all-around-swell-guy Ian Hunter, who quickly falls in love with her and proposes. She marries him despite not being in love with him. Later she meets hotshot pilot Errol Flynn and, well, you can figure the rest. For his part, Flynn is as charming as ever and has good chemistry with Francis. The highlight of the film is the Erich Korngold score, which makes things seem more exciting than they ever really are. A nice production, great actors, and a beautiful score are nothing to dismiss. Still, how much you enjoy this will depend on how much you enjoy romantic melodramas from the 1930s, where everyone stares off at some point and recites a soliloquy like they're in a stage play.

On the positive side, the makers of this film did leave over a few cliches for someone else. And it is entirely possible that when this picture was made the story elements had been used only dozens, rather than hundreds, of times before. But while numerous movies more than fifty years old have held up very well, this is one that has become an unintentional parody of itself.

The romantic femme fatale, mourning a lost love of her youth, and convinced she can never love again; the dashing, devil-may-care adventurer, certain that no one female could ever hold him; the middle-aged paragon of duty, service and principle, asking only to be allowed to worship that desirable woman, expecting not love, but merely loyalty, in return; the coward scorned by his mates, living for nothing but a chance to redeem himself. And much more, including British colonials, devious Arab chieftains, the burning desert, a suicide mission, memorable dying words, and of course, a young, spectacularly handsome Errol Flynn.

They don't make them like this anymore.

This is not the sort of movie you'd think it would be, as the film is set abroad and is about a British outpost. Considering this AND that the film stars Errol Flynn, you would expect that it would be an adventure film like LIVES OF A BENGAL LANCER or CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE--and if so, you'd be wrong. The film is purely a romantic melodrama about a woman (Kay Francis) who marries a man he likes and respects (Ian Hunter) but eventually falls in love with suave and romantic Errol Flynn (and, in 1937, who WOULDN'T have fallen for Errol?!). The problem is exacerbated because Francis genuinely loves Hunter as a friend and Errol is loyal to Hunter because he's his commanding officer, but their glands won't be satisfied until they break the awful news to nice-guy Hunter. This is, overall, a very sappy and sticky movie. Some will no doubt like it, but the ardent and more "wussified" Flynn isn't as satisfying a character as he played in most of his other films. And, the plot itself seems very old fashioned and...well...silly. Not a bad film, but certainly a lesser film and one that is mostly of interest to those who want to see every film Flynn made--even the weaker ones.

Well, I didn't have as violent a response as the first post I read, but "Another Dawn" is from another era and didn't survive it, trust me. It's all pip-pip, jolly good, and honor is all in this dated film starring the handsome Errol Flynn and the lovely Kay Francis. She's a widow who marries Flynn's commander, though she still mourns her late husband. When she meets Flynn, guess what, she finds she can love again. Yeah, like who couldn't. They're both too honorable to do much about it, though.

Most of the film takes place post-World War I in a Sahara outpost so there is lots of sand and some battles. Flynn is subdued in this, and Francis is radiant. Some of the dialogue is actually quite poetic - probably because they're quoting poems - and if it were in, say, The Rains Came, it would have worked very well - but it only adds to the melodrama in this film.

Films such as "Another Dawn" are interesting as artifacts of a lost time when, I suppose, people had stronger values and lived for the greater good. When it's a stronger script and production, of course, these marvelous qualities are worth revisiting, admiring, and feeling guilty about. Alas, however, nobility is not well served by "Another Dawn."

To see a lovely Kay Francis and a beautiful Errol Flynn share the pangs of romance in the dreamy sunsets of the Sahara is what this movie is all about. A great score by Erich Korngold whisks us along through their complex affair, romantic interludes and Flynn's courageous fight with the Arabs. The charms of the film have a faded edge, but I find this gives it a nostalgic appeal. Francis is wonderful to watch -- she's wistful, stylizes her performance with her usual grace, very appealingly. Flynn is a real handsome figure and gives an earnest performance, showing the conflicts of romancing is best friend and superior officer's wife. This is a pure movie movie -- to be watched for pleasure and the smile of nostalgia.

While on leave from his desert post somewhere in The Empire, Col. Wister (Ian Hunter) meets an American widow (Kay Francis), falls in love and marries her. He brings her back to his desert outpost, which has been overseen in his absence by Capt. Roark (Errol Flynn). She takes one look at Flynn, and you can probably write the rest. And Col. Wister is a noble, stiff-upper-lip representation of the British Lion (they're good sports).

There is no new ground broken in "Another Dawn", it's all been done before. The 3 principals acquit themselves very well and add some polish to a familiar theme. The picture is held together by Hunter and Francis, with Flynn tagging along as eye candy. Good but not spectacularly so, it is a harmless way to pass 75 minutes.

****** 6 of 10

The problem with this film is that it is based on a 1919 play from Somerset Maugham and has many of the sentiments of that period. Translated on the screen 20 years later it's a bit stodgy, and viewed many decades later, it seems very dated.

The other problem is that the film stars Errol Flynn but it's not an action film. Flynn was a great action actor, but with some few exceptions, all of them later in life, his best work was in action films.

The music from Erich Wolfgang Korngold is marvelous, and his work later with Flynn on "Robin Hood" would be one of the best scores ever.

If you're a Flynn fan you probably want to see this film, but otherwise it doesn't have much to recommend it.

In the grand tradition of very obvious war dramas, Another Dawn leaves the audience cold and bored. Kay Francis stars as a beautiful widow who vows to never love again. Ian Hunter falls in love with her and they get married on the principle of friendship, rather than love. Of course, as soon as they return from their romance-less honeymoon, Ian introduces his new bride to his best friend and fellow soldier Errol Flynn. Even if it wasn't Errol Flynn in the cast, this wouldn't be a difficult movie to predict.

Kay and Errol, two wild actors in real life, managed not to show the audience any chemistry together, and I couldn't help but think it was because they knew the script was so corny and predictable. Maybe it was all they could do to keep from rolling their eyes on camera. As beautifully handsome as Errol Flynn is, he's not nearly as sympathetic as Ian Hunter's character. And as much as your heart goes out to Ian, even he isn't as sympathetic as Herbert Mundin's character. Herbert is continually bullied and ridiculed by his fellow soldiers, and since he didn't do anything to deserve the treatment, it's pretty sad to watch.

Unless you're a Kay Francis fan, which I'm not really, you don't have to watch this one. Check out The Dawn Patrol for a much better Errol Flynn war movie, or even The Charge of the Light Brigade.

I watched this movie solely because Errol Flynn was in it. My all time favorite. However I was serendipitously introduced to Kay Francis, one of Hollywood's great female stars. She has since become one of my most adored actresses from a bygone era of great female actresses. Why movie land has not highlighted this movie and these two great film stars together is a mystery to me. Further, it would have been refreshing to see them together on other projects. This movie tugged at my heart as I watched it very late one night. My teenage children thought it was mushy. They were probably on target since they don't get a chance to see REAL acting like this, but rather a lot of sex scenes and nudity. To all E.F. or K.F. aficionado's, rent it, copy it, see it. You'll be glad you did.

In Another Dawn, Kay Francis marries Ian Hunter after a whirlwind shipboard romance when he's on leave in Britain. He's an army captain out there patrolling the far reaches of the Indian frontier and he likes to fly a plane in his spare time. She's already had a romance with a flier who was lost.

Of course upon arriving in India she discovers she likes his number two man Errol Flynn a whole lot more. In addition Flynn's got a sister on the post, Frieda Inescourt who is crushing out on Hunter, but never tells anyone.

Although Errol does have a brief skirmish with the Moslems to fulfill his action image requirement, the film is one gigantic soap opera with the people behaving as we Americans have come to expect in that stiff upper lip British tradition. These characters are way too noble, too self sacrificing because 'they're building a nation' as Ian Hunter so floridly puts it.

How the players managed to get through this romantic drivel is beyond me.

Errol Flynn and Kay Francis star in this movie about love and adventure. Ian Hunter meets Kay first and promptly falls in love with her, even though she admits she doesn't love him. But he does convince her to marry him and move to where he lives and works, a British outpost in the desert. By this means, she meets his second-in-command and right-hand man Errol Flynn. At first she doesn't take to him, even though most of the female viewers have already at first sight. (But he took to her; that's without saying.) But his hearty laugh startles her as it's similar to someone she loved very much and lost. Then, she begins to see him in a new light and spends a lot of time with him, as husband Ian has to travel to trouble-shoot, etc. Therefore, Kay and Errol, well.... Errol and Kay's good looks and chemistry and the movie's mysterious and menacing locale uplifts the material. And, their love scenes together are very exotic and romantic, with them walking hand in hand and getting caught in the moment, kissing.... Even if you don't consider the leads your favorites, I think you'll agree that Errol Flynn and the lovely Kay Francis do make a very passionate couple, and that you'll enjoy 73 minutes of them.

Maybe if Curtiz or Walsh or even George Stevens had directed this thing it would have had a chance to be at least somewhat entertaining. But in the always heavy hands of William Dieterle it oughta be called "Another Yawn" as both Kay Francis' and Errol Flynn's considerable rom com skills are wasted and boredom descends about five minutes in, never to be lifted.

Offsetting the awkward and embarrassing elements of the triangular love story are Korngold's gloriously exotic (if at times obtrusive) score and some occasional poetry in the dialogue. And, for the last two minutes of the film - finally - inspired direction from William Dieterle who, as we know from his better films (Devil and Daniel Webster), was perfectly capable of such things.

Colonel John Wister (Ian Hunter) is in charge of a fort in colonial British Sahara, a territory called Dickit. While on leave home to England, he falls for and marries American Julia Ashton (Kay Francis). Captain Denny Roark (Errol Flynn) is his best friend.

The start confused me a little. I assumed Errol Flynn to be the leading star of this flick. Upon introducing him, the film goes away from him for the first act. This is trying to be an action romantic epic but it's stuck in old style melodramatic love triangle. There are layers of romantic complications. It feels old style. Errol Flynn's easy charms is as clear as day. The ladies are Hollywood perfect despite being supposed to be in the desert. It's an old melodrama for fans of this type of movies but it's not for me.

This is nothing more than the Hollywood machine cranking out melodramatic bilge to stuff into theatres between quality pictures.

Basically a Kay Francis film. Her supposed charms elude me at the best of times, and all her movies have the same plot: Francis is kept one degree of separation away from her true love. We're supposed to buy it as romantic tension. To be blunt she always comes across to me as ''woman who doesn't actually like men." Ahem.

Ian Hunter is the other lead, and he's as colorless as the walls in my condo. Quick: Name a memorable Ian Hunter role. You can't. Because no such thing exists.

Warner Brothers must have known this was a dog, so they stuffed Errol Flynn into it, hot off Captain Blood and The Charge of the Light Brigade. As usual, he's the best looking person in the entire movie, including the women. He falls for Francis, which is only believable if she's the only woman for a thousand miles, which she might be, not counting Flynn's sister. What his sister is doing at the outpost, I don't know and I don't care. Totally superfluous character.

There's very little action. Featuring about a dozen extras, at most.

This movie would only have ever been made in the studio era. These days an actor as red hot as Flynn was by that point wouldn't even return the call of whatever producer was pitching him this script.

The cinematography in this movie, by Tony Gaudio, is stunning. The scenes shot in the desert, with the play of shadows on the sands and the wind blowing those sands, are magnificent. I'd love to see them on a really large screen.

The play of light and shadow through the levered blinds in some of the indoor shots is good as well.

The last scene, when we see Flynn and Frances in profile against a strangely lit sky, is also very good - though they are posed in a way so noble as to stretch credulity.

Some really remarkable and very beautiful cinematography, in other words.

The plot is another matter. It is a standard love triangle - two men love the same woman, who loves only one of them - but there isn't much erotic tension. The two men are so noble that you know they will do the right thing. Which, frankly, deprives the movie of suspense - contrast it with *Casablanca*, say - and makes it rather boring.

Flynn is good in this picture, very natural, very relaxed.

Kay Francis, on the other hand, over-dramatizes everything, which does not work against Flynn's detached and humorous manner. Olivia de Havilland would have been better in this role. Francis gets top billing - she was a BIG star then - but I honestly do not understand her appeal.

This is an uneven movie, in sum. The cinematography is great, Flynn is OK, but Francis is way over the top, and the plot, such as it is, not particularly involving.

This is the kind of film that once you've seen it, you have no intention on ever seeing it again. Not even if it comes out on DVD with a picture that looks like it was made fifty years later, would still make you not want to see it. This is Hollywood of the 1930's at it's worst and Errol Flynn at one of his worst. An unpleaseant, worthless, total piece of garbage of a film. Errol Flynn must of been desperate to get work, or maybe wanted to do something that wouldn't require a lot of energy. In the previous two years he did two action packed films that probably took out all his strength and energy and probably wanted do something like this muck. I could sit here and put down this film for a very long time, but hell I'm not going to waste my time. I'll just say this and end this review. WARNING: Think twice before watching this!! This is as bad as it gets, well ... almost as bad as it gets. I rate this film * out of ****.

Stodgy and over talky movie that falls between two stools--being neither satisfying as a romantic tale or an action movie.It largely unfolds in a British army outpost in Mesopotamia commanded by Ian Hunter who ,while holidaying in England ,falls in love with and marries a vivacious American widow,played by Kay Francis.On returning to the outpost a relationship develops between her and the second in command-a dashing Errol Flynn.This being the age of the stiff upper lip nobility and self sacrifice rule the day. There is one brisk desert fight between the British and the rebel Arabs but otherwise this is a picture that unfolds in drawing room chat and trembling lower lips are the order of the day.Flynn was always at his best in action rather than dialogue and while looking suitably dashing is simply dull, a state Francis is not good enough to attain being largely inert. The strong point of the movie,and the reason for my heading of this review is the striking score by Erich Wolfgang Korngold who used its themes in his majestic and still unduly neglected Violin Concerto When a score carries its main emotional weight then you have a movie which is sadly lacking in other departments Ignore the movie--track down the Concerto instead