Edge of Darkness (1943)

Lewis Milestone: Edge of Darkness (US 1943). Ann Sheridan (Karen Stensgard) and Errol Flynn (Gunnar Brogge) as Norwegian Resistance fighters.

Lewis Milestone: Edge of Darkness (US 1943). Ann Sheridan (Karen Stensgard) and Richard Fraser (Pastor Aalesen). "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God".

La bandiera sventola ancora / He tarttuivat aseisiin / Frihetskämpar / Patrioter / L'Ange des ténèbres / Край тьмы.

    US 1943. Prod.: Henry Blanke per Warner Bros. Pictures.

    Director: Lewis Milestone. Sog.: from the novel of the same name (1942) by William Woods. Scen.: Robert Rossen. F.: Sid Hickox – b&w. M.: David Weisbart. Scgf.: Robert Haas. Mus.: Franz Waxman. Int.: Errol Flynn (Gunnar Brogge), Ann Sheridan (Karen Stensgard), Walter Huston (doctor Martin Stensgard), Nancy Coleman (Katja), Helmut Dantine (captain Koenig), Judith Anderson (Gerd Bjarnesen), Ruth Gordon (Anna Stensgard), Tonio Selwart (Paul).

    "Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott" / "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God" / "Jumala ompi linnamme" (trad.+ comp. Martin Luther & Johann Walter, lyr. Martin Luther & Salomon Franck 1527). [The cantata by J. S. Bach "Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott" BWV 80 is based on this, but in the movie, the original hymn is heard.] n.c.

    Richard Wagner: Götterdämmerung / Twilight of the Gods (1876). n.c.

    I think I heard an Edvard Grieg favourite but could not put a name on it. n.c.

    119 min

    US premiere 24 April 1943.

    Helsinki premiere 21 Oct 1945 – Metropol – Warner Bros.

    35 mm print from Warner Bros. Pictures.

    By courtesy of Park Circus

    Il Cinema Ritrovato, Bologna 2025: Lewis Milestone: of Wars and Men.

    Viewed with e-subtitles in Italian at Cinema Jolly, 24 June 2025.    

Ehsan Khoshbakht (Bologna 2025): "Nazism is evil, but there are many different ways of portraying evil. The collaboration between two men who shared Russian Jewish heritage – director Lewis Milestone and writer Robert Rossen – approached Nazism in the Norwegian resistance drama Edge of Darkness as systematic bullying and an outright exploitative cult. Together, they created a two-fisted piece of agit-prop in which there is no trace of banality."

"In the 1940s, there was no more committed or angrier anti-fascist in American cinema than Rossen who here penned a film without heroes. In their place, he sketched a large group of fighters (including Warner stars Errol Flynn and Ann Sheridan), collaborators, and those who fell into the shades in between."

"Milestone, for his part, was not concerned with realism but aimed for maximum emotional impact, creating a film carried by an inner syncopation. With a style remarkably close to Soviet cinema, the film’s modernity – its stylised tracking shots and use of the zoom lens – feels closer today to the work of Miklós Jancsó than to typical war films of the 40s."

"Set two and a half years after the occupation of Norway, the film opens with a nightmarish sequence: the arrival of a German troop in a coastal village where they discover that the entire local population and the occupying German army have been massacred. The only survivor, a local capitalist collaborator turned madman, wanders the scene, claiming ownership of the corpses. He is shot within seconds."

"The film then unfolds in flashback, chronicling the formation of the local resistance. Some of the fighters are introduced in an extremely formalist manner – gestural (shown while living their daily life), Brechtian (with the camera taking the helm to introduce them), and rhythmic, with their movements syncopated to music."

"The film, with its affirmation of collective action, ends with President Roosevelt’s Look to Norway speech. For two hours, it maintains an unshakable sense of momentum – no frills in its depiction of the path from passive resistance to suicidal glory." Ehsan Khoshbakht (Bologna 2025)

IMDb capsule: "After two years under German rule, a small Norwegian fishing village rises up and revolts against the occupying Nazis."

AA: A double whammy today of Lewis Milestone's Resistance cinema. In the morning, a Ukrainian agricultural village was destroyed during the first days of Operation Barbarossa in The North Star. This afternoon, after two years of German rule, a Norwegian fishing village perishes in a mutual massacre that abhors even the Nazis.

Music matters. The theme music, sung by Norwegians, is Martin Luther's "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God". Nazis prefer Richard Wagner's Twilight of the Gods. Norwegians draw from German Christian Reformation, Nazis from Norwegian Pagan mythology about Ragnarök, the battle of the end of days.

This is the tragedy of a community. Two great Warner Bros. stars are in the frontline. Ann Sheridan is at her radiant best as a Resistance heroine, at ease with a song from her heart as well as a gun in her hand. Errol Flynn I have loved since boyhood as an undaunted, grinning, rebellious Robin Hood. Here he shaves his moustache and washes the smile from his face. I am impressed to discover this less charismatic but soberly convincing fighter in a war story.

Although this is a propaganda movie made in the heat of the most fatal year of WWII, there is room for complexity in the difficult issues of resistance in circumstances of guaranteed extreme retribution towards civilians when sabotage takes place. The question of collaboration is discussed with some nuance. "We are not all strong", states Dr. Martin Stensgard (Walter Huston). 

A digression here about Walter Huston. He first acted in a Milestone movie in 1932 in Rain, and his performance as the missionary Davidson was the best among the three film adaptations of W. Somerset Maugham's story. In 1943, he played both in Edge of Darkness and The North Star. For Milestone, he also provided voice talent for Our Russian Front (1942). Beyond Milestone, he was the narrator for much of the Why We Fight series and also appeared as the voice of Abraham Lincoln in The Battle for China. Incidentally, he also narrated the documentary Let There Be Light for his son John. As for 1943 and the controversial Soviet Alliance movies of Hollywood, he starred as Ambassador Joseph E. Davies in Michael Curtiz's Mission to Moscow (IMDb capsule: "Ambassador Joseph Davies is sent by FDR to Russia to learn about the Soviet system and returns to America as an advocate of Stalinism"). Walter Huston was a central force in US war propaganda. He even appears as Uncle Sam in December 7th (John Ford & Gregg Toland, US 1943). Somehow I sense a presence of his Abraham Lincoln performance for D. W. Griffith in all this.

The Norwegians have produced great Resistance movies themselves such as The Fight for the Atom Bomb (NO/FR 1948), Nine Lives (NO 1957) and Cold Tracks (NO 1962). I wonder if Edge of Darkness makes sense to them. Or The Heroes of Telemark for that matter.

The 35 mm print from Warner Bros. starts in low contrast (no full black levels). I forgot to write down further print quality observations.