The Dark Angel is perhaps best described as a backdrop movie, as in "a tale of love and passion set amid the backdrop of WWI". A lot of bloated, melodramatic movies are set against the backdrop of some historically significant event, but said film never really deals with the importance of it. It's a writer's excuse to give a simple plot line more gravitasse than it actually has.
If you haven't guessed from the tone of this review, this another in a long line of movies I can't really defend that much but am given a modest recommendation because it's not boring and inoffensive. Yes, this movie isn't that great, but it flows well and if you are into mid-30's melodrama.
If this were made twenty years early it would be set during the Civil War and twenty years later it would take place during WWII, but because it's from the mid 30's (based on a play by Lillian Hellman from the 20's), so it's the Great War time. The movie follows three childhood friends who have grown up to form a love triangle. Alan Trent (Fredric March) and Kitty Vane (Merle Oberon) are deeply in love, but unfortunately Gerald Shannon (Herbert Marshall) also loves Kitty, who only feels for him on a platonic level. Alan and Gerald are drafted in to WWI, where the two buds run into trouble due to a misunderstanding right out of Three's Company, but played seriously. Alan then buys it (don't worry, it happens in the first act) and Gerald and Kitty are tormented with guilt.
The movie is certainly well acted. March was one of the finest actors of his era, whose versatility is sometimes forgotten due to his handsome, matinee idol good looks. Marshall and Oberon are good at their traditional, stiff upper lip roles- in particular I liked Gerald, who is the kind of honorable, decent friend we all want to have. But this movie is basically a soap opera, built around plot contrivances. Like so many movie love stories, there is no real reason these particular people are so into each other. Introducing some real psychology into this story would have really helped.
Director Sidney A. Franklin is good at keeping the film moving, but this is the sort of movie that disappears from memory moments after you've seen it. In fact…hey, what movie were we talking about?
The Dark Angel (1935)