Flight for Freedom (1943)

Academy Awards, USA 1944

Nominee Oscar

Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Black-and-White Albert S. D'Agostino Carroll Clark Darrell Silvera Harley Miller

RKO Radio Pictures
Directed by Lothar Mendes
My rating: 2 stars out of 4
IMDb Wikipedia
(DVD, Warner Archive Collection)

Rosalind Russell gives a poor imitation of Amelia Earhart, the famous American flyer. She is picked up by playboy Fred MacMurray, who whisks her away on his private airplane for romantic dinners. He's soon off to another part of the world, though, and when he returns years later he expects her to be waiting. However, she is now engaged to her flight instructor, though secretly is still in love with MacMurray. Her plans to be the first woman to circumnavigate the globe are interrupted by the Navy. She is asked to fake a crash so they can send out a search party, which will really be searching for the Japanese fleet. She agrees, and so, it turns out, does MacMurray. The plans are discovered at the last minute and she has to decide if she will sacrifice herself for her country. Since this is mostly WWII propaganda, she does, in a rather depressing ending.