The Hell of Lost Pilots (1949) User Reviews

Forced landing

[dbdumonteil · 18 September 2006]

A plane's emergency landing in the desert.The title of the film could make you think of a screenplay inspired by Saint-Exupéry's famous "le Petit Prince" .But it is not.It is a disaster movie.The critics complained about the low budget.But big budgets do not necessarily save a movie.

¨Paradis des pilotes perdus" is not that much bad ,given the limitations the director,Georges Lampin,was working under.The characters are stereotypes (the mother and her young son,the brave lieutenant)but the cast is good including Henri Vidal,par excellence the hero of those French years,Andrée Debar and her strange androgynous look,Michel Auclair and Daniel Gelin.

No radio and water is running out.The passengers begins to argue and confrontation is around the corner.

Up from the great beyond,they will guide my tired feet.

[ulicknormanowen · 7/10 · 5 January 2022]

A disaster movie long before it would become a la mode ,in the American seventies;and with hindsight, it displays some interest :even the French air force was summoned ,and their interventions provide the movie with a documentary side of their means at the time ; a " flight of the phoenix" ,on a smaller scale : a short film , no color, but the same problem: the law of water ,as the captain says .

A plane, caught in a sandstorm ,is forced to land in the middle of the desert : the passengers are civilians ,the crew is military; the former ones include a mother and her baby (that a baby can survive -he almost never cries - in such conditions is one of the implausibilities of the screenplay) , a young couple (Arlette Thomas ,for once not cast as the plain girl and Jean-Pierre Mocky ,future director), a priest, an arrogant petulant cocky businessman , a cop and his handcuffed prisoner (Michel Auclair) -but in the desert,how do you want me to escape?

"We've got to travel with a convict ,says an horrified passenger .-Christ was crucified between two thieves " answers the priest ;religion and faith play a prominent part in the story : the midnight mass on the air base which segues into the marooned ones,in the icy night of the desert .

Lieutenant Villeneuve does believe that in the hereafter ,there must be a paradise where God has welcomed the lost famous pilots (Saint-Exupery,Mermoz);as he leaves (not obeying his superior) the camp ,he is certain that his brothers in the sky will guide his exhausted feet to a saving caravan :Daniel Gelin ,with his hopeful look,gives one of the two best performances.(He's featured on the poster)

Michel Auclair gives a non-conventional performance as a little thief down on his luck ; instead of making him a savior,who would redeem himself (what the audience expects ), the writers make him a weak man ,who,like his fellow men and women,is obsessed by thirst :the scene when he talks about ice and unwittingly advertises French mineral waters,Evian, Vittel,Périer , is human.

The rest of the cast is just OK .Henri Vidal is the manly pilot hard on the water stealers but just; the rest are essentially extras .