In short: Northern Pursuit (1943)

After an overcomplicated set-up for it all in a first act that never seems to even want to end, Mountie Steve Wagner (Errol Flynn) attempts to go undercover with – Bavarian, going by the predominant accents - Nazis who have some sort of dastardly plan in the Northern wilds of Canada. Alas, the Nazis – specifically their especially evil leader Hugo von Keller (Helmut Dantine) - don’t believe the way too convenient series of betrayals our hero and his bosses have created to lure them, and secure his cooperation in getting them through the wilderness alive by taking his fiancé Laura McBain (Julie Bishop) hostage. But he’s still played by Errol Flynn, so…

Apparently, William Faulkner did some uncredited writing work on this one, even if it is rather hard to imagine and even more difficult to notice. Going by what ended up on screen, the film must have gone through the 40s version of production hell, leading to a sometimes painfully uneven script whose first act set-ups feel strained and contrived and will become completely unnecessary rather sooner than later anyway.

The film markedly improves once Flynn and the comic book Nazis (this is not a complaint) get together in the great white north, director Raoul Walsh creating tensions between the various grades of evil of the Nazis and their helpers, the way they use a couple of First Nation people whose male part actually believes the lovers of Aryan purity will treat his people better than the Canadians do (who were, don’t get me wrong, treating his people horribly indeed), and Wagner’s attempts at somehow thwarting the Nazis while protecting - pleasantly plucky – Laura’s life. And kudos to a film from ‘43 for at least hinting at the possibility someone might collaborate with the Nazis because he’s treated badly by their enemies.

Walsh, while clearly, not working at his full powers of imagination but very much in hired hand mode, does still create some nice action set-pieces in the final act, with a genuinely dangerous looking ski chase and some climactic business in an airplane alone worth the price of entry. Flynn’s charming and manly without being macho, the Nazis are evil, the character actors do their stuff – there’s really very little to complain here beyond the bad spy movie first act, if you take the film for what it is.