Flight from Destiny

Professor Todhunter is told he has 6 months left to live, he is barred from teaching by his college so there won't be a scandal if he drops dead in class.

But it would give his students something for reflection...

FLIGHT FROM DESTINY reminds me of an episode from tv's Alfred Hitchcock Presents, as you have a neat combo of noir and fantasy, and with some intriguing characters. Oscar winning Thomas Mitchell is perfect for the role of an aging criminology professor (Todhunter?) who is given only months to live. Rather than sit around and wait for fate, why not put his theories into gear and become judge and jury of someone criminal?

Sounds like Hitchcock, right? This was one of many slick B-films Warner Brothers turned out on the 1930s and 40s and with superb casts. Credit Barry Trivers for the story, who would go onto write for THE MILLIONAIRE tv series, later several top detective shows, like MANNIX and KOJAK. His work was extensive. This was also an early effort for director Vincent Sherman, a WB staple for years. The cast is unforgettable with co-stars Geraldine Fitzgerald and Jeffrey Lynn. Jonathan Hale (ole Mr. Dithers in BLONDIE) has a fun part as the district attorney who thinks Mitchell is just plain nuts! Spanish actress Mona Maris steals the show as the ultimate spoiled rotten baddie, who is judged and sentenced by Prof. Todhunter to die. Maris in later years wrote she was always hissed because she played so many female villains and got stuck in that type of role. Also look for a young William Hopper (PERRY MASON) as Travin and distinguished Thurston Hall as Dean Somers. Solid late show stuff that you can't miss with that cast. Thanks Warner Brothers. Always on dvd.

As you've gathered by now, this film is about a professor of philosophy who knows he has a few months to live and becomes obsessed with the idea that since he has so little to lose he could seize the opportunity to murder a really bad person.

A disturbing thought in today's era of copycat crimes, gun violence, and hate in general. I almost feel like this film should be suppressed before some segments of the population start seriously considering the idea.

So we have a crime film, though with less action than usual, as well as a philosophical discussion of whether it's a good idea to murder people because you have a fatal disease and will die soon anyway.

I don't think it's a spoiler to say that ultimately the film doesn't recommend murdering people, but that hardly describes the events in the plot, which I won't give away, though I'll say that the event that makes the professor see the error of his ways is a bit forced and arbitrary.

Great performance by Thomas Mitchell, though audiences may not identify too much with a dying old man vacillating between sanctimoniousness and contemplating murder. Even greater performance by Mona Maris, whose career was mostly in Spanish-language films, as amoral home wrecker and intended victim. Geraldine Fitzgerald and Jeffrey Lynn both fine as usual as the couple involved, and Thurston Hall amusing as usual as a blustering bureaucratic boss.

I feel like I've made this film sound more interesting that it is. Well, it is in a way but I'd recommend it more for curiosity value than enjoyment.

Thomas Mitchell (Henry) is a philosophy Professor who has been given 6 months to live but things may come to an end sooner if he undergoes any physical exertion. He uses this fact in planning his last few months. He will murder someone for the good of society, someone who is detrimental to the development of mankind. Well, he does his research for a target and picks someone out. Can he change the world through his actions?

An interesting story although I wasn't totally convinced by Mitchell in the lead role. He looks more like a drunk tramp than a Professor, he delivers his lines rather too carefully which makes him sound a bit slow in the head, and his whole idea is flawed from the start as he makes a non-sensical jump to the fact that he is immortal. And where's his beard? A much better idea for him would have been to jump straight into bed with art dealer Mona Maris (Ketti). Let her know that he's not looking for commitment and get it on. He made a schoolboy error with her. A casting question – why is Geraldine Fitzgerald who plays the role of "wife" top billed? It doesn't make sense. The best in the cast is Mona Maris and the worst is Willie Best and his racial stereotype.

So who would you murder and how would you justify it? I wouldn't go for any of this benefit to society nonsense. I'd pick someone I didn't like, a far more human approach. Check out what is currently going on at that great British Institution which is Crufts. The annual doggy show is immersed in scandal as rivals are poisoning each others dogs. Some sort of competitive murder seems the way to go. And I'm sure some may feel that Tonya Harding didn't quite go far enough with Nancy Kerrigan back on the ice skating circuit in the 1990s.

Thomas Mitchell takes a "Flight from Destiny," in this 1941 film also starring Geraldine Fitzgerald, Jeffrey Lynn, and Mona Maris.

Thomas plays a professor with six months to live who is told by his boss that he can't teach any longer at the university. He would like to do something meaningful in his last six months.

After giving it some thought and talking to his buddies at his club, he decides to murder someone, someone whom the law can't touch, someone whose loss wouldn't be missed and someone who is a detriment in her world.

He learns that there are problems in the marriage of his friends, Betty and Michael Farraway. Michael is a talented artist but hasn't been producing much lately. Professor Todhunter and Betty follow him one night and see him meeting a glamorous woman, Ketti Moret (Maris), an art dealer.

Todhunter visits the woman, who denies any interest in Michael other than in his career, and while there, Todhunter admires a valuable painting. When he goes to Michael's studio with Betty, he finds a painting that doesn't look like Michael's work but does look like the old painting in Ketti Moret's house.

The professor realizes that she is having Michael replicate the artist's style, and she is selling them as originals. He investigates Moret thoroughly and discovers that she abandoned her husband and daughter, putting her daughter in an orphanage, and doesn't help her mother, who works as a janitor. Todhunter decides that she must die.

While somewhat predictable, this is certainly an original story with an excellent performance by Thomas Mitchell. I love the beautiful Mona Maris in anything, and she was wonderful as the amoral, narcissistic Ketti. Geraldine Fitzgerald is lovely but wasted, and Jeffrey Lynn is very good.

It's hard to describe this film or story - it's really one you have to see and judge for yourself. In well over 3000 films that I've seen, I've seen just one other with as bizarre a plot, Trouble for Two, from Hollywood's golden era. Well worth a look.