How sad is this?

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

One more work of the times when propaganda ala Frank Capra was must in the Ally countries. It is one of the movies which suggests that Germans conquered European Continent in less than two years by being rude, shouting and making evil Disney Cartoon faces. Above all, our heroes over here are not only walking inside the Nazi Germany successfully, but are making successful diversions and beating the whole German army and SS that are after them. All in all, movie was made like Dunkirk had never happened before. Just two years later in reality of WWII Part II, the Ally Forces won't be able to achieve any major victory against heavy crippled and outnumbered German Army on the Western front after the landing, without simultaneous Soviet attacks in the East. Americans will lose much more soldiers in these eight months of war engagement in Europe than in Pacific for more than four years of warfare. Still, movie has this old cute style of making a corny war story and above all good all cowboy Ronnie in it.

Predictably entertaining and simple-minded Warner Bros. war heroics with Flynn and his comrades crossing hostile Nazi Germany, behaving like a bunch of boy scouts on a scavenger hunt, while striking down lots and lots of stupid German soldiers.Way too much half-baked comedy relief and anthemic background music, not to mention the weak plot, prevent this from being one of the more watchable Flynn adventures. In fact, from here on Flynn's movies started to decline in quality.It's still a fun ride in its silly way.4 out of 10 spit pepper corns

Errol Flynn (as Terry Forbes), Alan Hale (as Kirk Edwards), Ronald Reagan (as Johnny Hammond), Arthur Kennedy (as Jed Forrest), and Ronald Sinclair (as Lloyd Hollis) are fighting the Germans during World War II. Their plane crashes in Germany. They are taken as POWs, but attempt a "Desperate Journey" to escape.The film starts with a very exciting battle and plane crash. The five surviving soldiers are captured by the Germans, and (highly implausibly) spend the film on the run. It starts out threatening to become an adventure/war/drama - with some comic touches. BUT, it really becomes an action/war comedy. The action and direction (Raoul Walsh) are great; though, the pace of the excitement may be a bit lopsided. The comedy works - both intentionally and intentionally.Mr. Reagan (unexpectedly; and, Reagan "steals" the film) and Mr. Hale (expectedly) are great. If you take the film as comedy, they have the best lines and the most fun. The others are okay. Do note that the film loses some elements during the runtime - a little of its heart and a little of its comedy - and the film doesn't really take the loss well, thematically. ****** Desperate Journey (1942) Raoul Walsh ~ Errol Flynn, Alan Hale, Ronald Reagan

When the mission begins and the crew is ready to take off, the captain says, "Start port outboard engine" (this would be the left side of the plane farthest away from the fuselage). Yet the camera flips to the inboard starboard side and the engine starts followed by the other engines.The movie is a bit of a feel-good movie but it's also fun. Alan Hale Sr. (father of the "Skipper" on TV series "Gilligan's Island") often plays comic relief (e.g. with Mr. Flynn in "Robin Hood") and he does it well. Lots of quick one-liners you will enjoy.There's a lot of German language without subtitles but the even though I don't know German it doesn't hurt the plot. In fact, the meaning is fairly obvious even if you don't know German and gives a better feel to the idea of being in a foreign country during war.