SamHardy Looks like MGM threw a lot of money and big stars at this and hoped for the best, thinking that the William Faulkner book would give it a prestige flavor. It's possible that with some major script revisions and a different cast it might have worked. But in it's current state it more resembles a train wreck that you just can't turn your head away from. With it's stars and it's director, expectations are high. Just does not deliver.My major problem with it is that 3 actors in the lead are supposed to be British. Looks like only a half-hearted effort was made by Crawford, Tone and Young to adopt an English accent. The result is some sort of hybrid that not only sounds unauthentic but succeeds in making their dialog almost impossible to understand. One curious thing is that through almost all of it's running time there is no background music. Then towards the end at an emotional high point the sound of a solo piano is heard. Being a high class production you would expect to hear the legendary MGM orchestra. The score for the solo piano is so wrong for this scene that it makes me wonder "what were they thinking?" Crawford does her best over-the-top emoting from start to finish trying desperately to breath some life into this, all for naught.Cooper gives his characteristic laconic reading. Just about right for this part. Tone is not given much chance to show what he can do here. He fools with his pipe a lot and sort of mumbles. (Pipes are a visual cue that shows the character to be British, right?)Young never was much of an actor and never seemed to rise above the level of acting here through the rest of his career. He is just plain wrong here. Maybe Howard Hawks knew early on that this one was going to be a railroad disaster and just sort of punched the clock to it's finish.Waste your time on this one if you insist but in my opinion it is NOT an undiscovered jewel.

nomoons11 This thing had script issues all the way through. I imagine he got befuzzled cause he had to add a love interest to this story where it didn't exist in the actual story this was based on.Gary Cooper inherits a large English house and has to evict Joan Crawford and her bother. She's OK cause she moves into a garden house. Her brother, and his friend played by Franchot Tone, enlist into WWI. From here we get a lot of melodrama such whilst in France fighting the Germans. Gary Cooper decides to be a pilot and do his bit.This one needed some real script rewrites or extra scenes added all the way through. First off, Gary Copper's character is on this very briefly in the beginning. From this we get him coming to take his house...riding a bike next to Joan Crawford on the road...and in the same scene he says he loves her...and she the same. Wait a minute! Am I missing something? Where's the lead up to this so called love between these 2? There isn't any. This was a serious misfire in this film.That premise is basically the whole film. Joan Crawford's character marries her childhood friend even though she loves the Cooper character. She loves him but more in a friend like way. She finds out the Cooper character is killed off and she marries her friend. Eventually, he surprises her and shows that he wasn't dead. It was a mistake. Now she's torn.The film works itself out. The ending is typical happy go lucky and they get together but it shoulda went another route.This was just too generic a film to be rated any higher than it is. Gary Cooper is dead wooden in this one and is most certainly not one of his high points in his career.Browse past this one and try Hell's angels...a way better alternative.

calvinnme This film could have been great with some adequate dialogue and character development. For some reason the makers of this film seemed to believe that because three of the main characters were supposed to be British that it was necessary that they speak in incomplete sentences, usually missing nouns, and that they speak as though tranquilized. They all still sound American, they're just having half of every conversation.Bogard (Gary Cooper) is an American who takes over a British estate during World War I before the Americans enter the fray because the current residents can no longer afford it since the father is in the military at the time. The daughter, Diana (Joan Crawford) moves into one of the servant's quarters and her brother Ronnie (Franchot Tone) and their lifetime friend Claude (Robert Young) join up with the British forces and ship out to France. The development of the romance between Bogard and Diana consists (onscreen) of exactly one bike ride in which Bogard declares his love and Diana's one word sentences make her seem disinterested. However, at the end of the ride she says rather emotionlessly that she loves Bogard. The two might as well be using semaphores to communicate, the conversation is that wooden.Diana goes to France to help the war effort, with her brother and childhood sweetheart seeing action nearby. In France she gets news that Bogard is dead, although that news is incorrect. Based on that information she then makes a rash decision that she later regrets when Bogard shows up at her door.On the other hand, the action sequences, both in the air and on the sea, are extremely well done and photographed. It's just a shame when such a fine cast as this film had all have their performances put in a straight jacket. The one thing that even the director couldn't do was put a complete damper on the chemistry between Franchot Tone and Joan Crawford. This is the film where they fell in love, and their scenes together show it, even though they are playing brother and sister here.

moviefreak37 A tolerable romance/war-actioner with the stars doing their best in a boring love story.The movie comes alive only in the war scenes.The interplay between the male stars works better than the romance bit.Roscoe Karns is impressive in supporting part as Cooper's war buddy