Movies I've Missed Until Now: Uncertain Glory (1944)

I watched this movie a while back but decided I wanted to wait and let my reaction to it percolate in my brain some before I wrote about it, to see if I felt differently after I thought it over. UNCERTAIN GLORY, made in 1944, stars Errol Flynn, and I usually really enjoy Flynn’s movies. The script was co-authored by Max Brand. And it was directed by Raoul Walsh, one of my all-time favorite directors. So it seemed to be a movie I would really enjoy.

I hated it. And I can’t talk about why I hated it without tons of spoilers, especially about the ending. So if you’ve never seen this movie and think you might watch it someday, you might be well-advised just to move on and not read this post.

For those of you still reading, Flynn plays a somewhat different sort of character for him, a French criminal who’s a professional thief and quite possibly a murder. He’s been convicted of murder, anyway, and is about to taken to the guillotine when an Allied bombing raid wrecks the prison and he escapes. World War II is going on, you see, and of course France is currently occupied by the Nazis.

So far, so good. A French police inspector played by Paul Lukas is on Flynn’s trail, and for a while we get an excellent cat-and-mouse movie with Lukas trying to catch Flynn and Flynn trying to stay ahead of the law. Flynn, of course, makes friends with some villagers, because he’s charming and likable despite being a criminal. How could he be anything else? He’s Errol Flynn! He’s not really a bad guy. He’s just a rogue!

Or maybe not. He probably did all the things he’s accused of, the script deliberately leaves that ambiguous. But Lukas finally catches him and is ready to take him back to Paris for another date with Madame Guillotine.

But wait! The Resistance has blown up a bridge in the area, and the Nazis have taken a hundred of the local men prisoner and the local S.S. commander is threatening to execute them unless the saboteur turns himself in. Flynn hatches the idea of pretending to be the saboteur and turning himself in so that he can save the hostages, but only if Lukas will allow him to have a few more days of freedom. Lukas agrees, reluctantly.

This is all very well-done. The acting is great, the script is nice and crisp, and even though there’s not much action, Walsh keeps things moving along at an entertaining pace. I was enjoying this, waiting for what I figured was the inevitable twist: something would happen that results in a big, action-packed climax in which Flynn reveals he really is a good guy as he rescues the hostages, kills a bunch of Nazis, and redeems himself, after which Lukas lets him go to join a Resistance unit. Or else he rescues the hostages and dies in a blaze of glory with a machine gun chattering in his hands.

BIG SPOILER NOW.

What really happens: Flynn turns himself in to the S.S. and they execute him, I guess. We’re never really told one way or the other.

I was left staring at the screen with the proverbial “Wait . . . What?” look on my face. No bullets flying, no grenades going off, no stirring music? Would the ending I expected have been hokey as all get-out? Well, yeah, but it’s still what I wanted, and what I figured I was sure to get from Errol Flynn, Max Brand, and Raoul Walsh. I didn’t want some artsy “statement.”

I almost just let this one go and didn’t write about it. I’m a firm believer in the idea that you should review a book or a movie or a TV show for what it is, not what you want it to be. And to be fair, UNCERTAIN GLORY is a very well-made, well-acted movie. As a piece of cinema, it’s worth watching. But I was enormously disappointed in it.

Those of you who disagree—or agree, for that matter—feel free to let me know. Won’t bother me a bit either way.