Fans of Flynn's swashbuckling sagas or western dust-ups may be disappointed to find him here in a rather talky, restrained melodrama in which he is off-screen for a startling amount of the run time. The story is really Francis'. She plays a forlorn American whose three-year love affair with a daring pilot was cut short when he died during a flight. She is wooed and uneasily won by British Colonel Hunter while he is on a trip away from his remote desert post. Upon arriving back there with his new bride (who has sworn she will never truly love again after suffering the loss of her previous mate), he is called upon to leave on a mission, leaving Francis to get to know his second-in-command Flynn. Not only is Flynn drop-dead handsome, but his laugh reminds Francis of her deceased love and soon the pair is flirting with the possibility of an affair. In order to salvage her marriage to Hunter, Francis recommends Flynn for the next dangerous assignment, but then frets over him the entire time. When a third mission comes about, the two men (who, by now, realize the position they are in with Francis) haggle about who will end up flying off into the sunset, and quite probably not returning. Francis (showing off some fancy Orry-Kelly gowns) is lovely and charming despite her sometimes dreary, drippy character. Flynn is beautiful and dapper, but gets little or no chance to show off the roguish, impish charm that made him a superstar. He and Francis do share one very romantic embrace in a garden and he also gets to engage in one rather minor action sequence, but it's a bit of a letdown to see him trudging through this story which is more a study of honor and self-sacrifice than a powerful love story. Hunter does a good job, but is understandably less captivating than Flynn. Inescort portrays Flynn's sister and doesn't have too awful much to do. Her oncoming MS can be noted in a telephone scene in which she holds her hand in an awkward position. It's an acceptable, well-appointed, but unspectacular film (that's also thankfully brief!) that's an okay time-killer, but not likely to be ranked very highly in the canon of its stars, especially Flynn's.
Review of Another Dawn
