DVD N NORTHERN PURSUIT

NORTHERN PURSUIT

Written by TroyAnderson Jul 25th 2010 Hits: 229 Favorites

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THE PLOT THUS FAR

Canadian Mountie Steve Wagner captures a German Luftwaffe officer on a spy mission, who later escapes from the prison camp. To catch the spy ring, the Mounties employ a ruse so that the spies, believing Steve to be sympathetic, enlist him in their plans.

WHAT WE THOUGHT

Flynn and Raoul Walsh were very close friends, but they both might have been blind-sided into this one by dear old Jack Warner. The film concerns Nazis in Canada who are trying to get way into the Canadian wilderness, where parts of a bomber has been hidden. Once assembled, it's going to take out the St. Lawrence Seaway. More than a little preposterous. Flynn is a mountie whose character is of German descent, so he goes undercover and, knowing the area, helps the Nazis on their journey. Even if you ignore this plot, and you have to in order to get through the movie, it's pretty slow going. There are some exciting scenes, but this isn't your usual Flynn adventure film.

Prior to the outbreak of WWII the ever methodical Germans had the foresight to ship crates of airplane parts and a bunch of bombs to Canada and to hide all this stuff in a abandoned mine deep in the wilderness (the location shooting actually took place in Sun Valley, Idaho). Captured Nazi airmen are set free and cross-country ski to the mine. Once there they unpack the parts and in a couple days assemble a large "bomber" with which they intend to bomb the locks on the St. Lawrence Seaway. If your plausibility meter has just jumped off the scale remember that this was intended for an audience raised on "The Adventures of Tom Swift". Errol Flynn plays a RCMP agent who infiltrates the Nazi network and is later forced to help with their scheme because they are holding his girlfriend as a hostage. Helmut Dantine plays a fanatical Luftwaffe pilot and Gene Lockhart plays an undercover Nazi agent.

The DVD comes with a Warner Night at the Movies run-in feature for the film. I love that Warner Brothers does something this creative to try and recreate the original movie-going experience. Taking vintage Looney Tunes shorts, newsreel footage and one-reel subjects...we're able to revisit the Golden Age of Hollywood. The A/V Quality shows remarkable restoration to such Flynn classics. I just wish that we would eventually get to see an HD master of these older movies. As it stands, I'd recommend it for a purchase to all classic Hollywood fans.

RELEASE DATE: 08/03/2010