Main Cast: Errol Flynn, Paul Lukas, Jean Sullivan, Lucile Watson, Faye Emerson
Release Year: 1944
Country: US
Run Time: 102 minutes
Plot
Uncertain Glory finds Errol Flynn atypically cast as French criminal Jean Picard, a craven coward whose many misdeeds have earned him a date with the guillotine. Detective Marcel Bonet (Paul Lukas) intends to see that Picard keeps his appointment with the executioner, despite the fact that there's a war on. When the Nazis capture 100 French hostages to force a resistance saboteur to surrender himself, Picard offers to pose as the saboteur and thereby save the lives of the innocent villagers. In truth, he plans to escape once he's turned himself over to the Nazis, leaving the villagers in the lurch, but at the last moment his latent patriotism overcomes his sense of self-preservation. Errol Flynn's character is almost as inconsistent as the script, but war films invariably made money in 1944. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
Director Raoul Walsh reportedly dismissed Uncertain Glory as a "quickie." Walsh may have thought so but he certainly doesn't seem to have treated the material lightly. Yes, Errol Flynn's transformation from callous thief and murderer to nobly giving his life for France may seem superficial, as many modern reviewers have suggested, but Uncertain Glory should be considered for what it was: wartime propaganda. France, at least Free France, was a beleaguered ally, "old and battered but never giving up," as one character in the film puts it, and Flynn's reformed criminal and Paul Lukas' law-and-order conservative policeman spoke directly to both the American home front and the French émigrés in London and Washington. The chemistry between the two remains the center of a thrilling narrative that holds up surprisingly well, and instead of dismissed it as a "quickie," Uncertain Glory deserves to be much better known today than is the case. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
Robert M. Haas - Art Director, Raoul Walsh - Director, George J. Amy - Editor, Adolph Deutsch - Composer (Music Score), Leo F. Forbstein - Musical Direction/Supervision, Perc Westmore - Makeup, Sidney Hickox - Cinematographer, Robert Buckner - Producer, Walter F. Tilford - Set Designer, Roy Davidson - Special Effects, Joe May - Screen Story, Laszlo Vadnay - Screen Story, Laszlo Vadnay - Screenwriter, Max Brand - Screenwriter
