Okay, so the British film 49th Parallel has a similar basic premise and is much better. But this one isn't bad. It definitely is an American film in that it focuses more on the action and romance than the integrity of the story. Flynn playing a Mountie is essentially just any typical American western hero except with the whole snow and funny hats thing.
Now, no offense to our Canadian neighbors, with their beady eyes and flapping heads, but the average American couldn't pinpoint Toronto or Vancouver on a map. So, it doesn't really matter to them if the geography or the seasonal months are wrong. The movie could be set at the North Pole for all anyone in the middle of North America cares. I know that's insulting and demonstrates our ignorance, but it also means the filmmakers aren't going to be worried.
Take those elements away, and you basically have a fairly standard WW2 saboteur thriller. Because it's made by Raoul Walsh, it suffers from his strange combination of sometimes getting scenes just eerily right with atmosphere and camerawork and then others just completely wrong, especially with the editing. I'm not sure why, but pretty much every Walsh film is uneven, as though he just shot each scene individually, sometimes without enough takes and no concern for how it was going to fit together in the end.
The parts of this movie that drag the most involve the romance. I don't know what it is about movies in the 30s and 40s, but if someone isn't breaking out into song they're romancing someone in the most inappropriate moments. If this movie had just stuck to the spy stuff, it might have been considerably better.
There's some nice model work at the beginning with the U-boat, and the settings have that fun studio set look that was common while also being scenic and interesting. There's some good lighting and chases, and Flynn gives no worse a performance than anything else he'd done. So this is a serviceable film. No, not brilliant, but a notch above a TV show episode.
Now, no offense to our Canadian neighbors, with their beady eyes and flapping heads, but the average American couldn't pinpoint Toronto or Vancouver on a map. So, it doesn't really matter to them if the geography or the seasonal months are wrong. The movie could be set at the North Pole for all anyone in the middle of North America cares. I know that's insulting and demonstrates our ignorance, but it also means the filmmakers aren't going to be worried.
Take those elements away, and you basically have a fairly standard WW2 saboteur thriller. Because it's made by Raoul Walsh, it suffers from his strange combination of sometimes getting scenes just eerily right with atmosphere and camerawork and then others just completely wrong, especially with the editing. I'm not sure why, but pretty much every Walsh film is uneven, as though he just shot each scene individually, sometimes without enough takes and no concern for how it was going to fit together in the end.
The parts of this movie that drag the most involve the romance. I don't know what it is about movies in the 30s and 40s, but if someone isn't breaking out into song they're romancing someone in the most inappropriate moments. If this movie had just stuck to the spy stuff, it might have been considerably better.
There's some nice model work at the beginning with the U-boat, and the settings have that fun studio set look that was common while also being scenic and interesting. There's some good lighting and chases, and Flynn gives no worse a performance than anything else he'd done. So this is a serviceable film. No, not brilliant, but a notch above a TV show episode.