Clarence Brown's "Night Flight'' (1933) is a rarity: an all-star MGM production out of circulation so long it's been seen by practically nobody who's still alive. Metro's rights to Antoine de Saint-Exupery's aviatation novel were not renewed when they expired in 1942 (he disappeared on a World war II flight two years later). David O. Selznick's lavish adapation, a box-office disappointment in its time, was apparently never re-released, has never been shown on TV, and has never been legally available on video until today's very welcome DVD debut (as a regular commercial title) by Warner Home Video.

The skimpy 85 minute running time -- it was reportedly previewed at over two hours -- is a tipoff this flawed but fascinating would-be successor to "Grand Hotel'' and "Dinner at Eight'' was a troubled production. According to Ronald Haver's "David O. Selznick's Hollywood,'' when the producer first read Oliver H.P. Garrett's script, "Selznick was a bit taken aback to discover that the bulk of his spectacular air adventure took place on the ground, in offices and bedrooms.''

Selznick brought in Hollywood's go-to writer for aviation films -- an uncredited John Monk Saunders ("The Dawn Patrol'') -- to add more flying scenes and to entice Clark Gable, who complained his part as a doomed pilot flying over the Andes was too small. In the finished film, Gable has barely any dialogue, acting mostly with incredibly expressives eyes and face. But his deft underplaying -- look at that smile when he finally breaks through the clouds -- makes him the most memorable actor in a film with a trio of professional scenery chewers also billed above the title.

 

Among them is Helen Hayes,  cast as Gable's increasingly worried wife after they scored a hit together in "The White Sister.'' This time around, audiences were disappointed that Hayes got no closer to Gable than a framed photograph (that oddly anticipates Judy Garland's famous "Dear Mr. Gable'' number). Hayes -- who made just two more films for MGM before fleeing Hollywood, only to  return for 1952's ill-fated "My Son John'' -- plays her big scene -- a confrontation after learning her hubby has almost certaily be lost at sea in a storm -- with top-billed John Barrymore, as the ruthless manager of the Buenos Aires-based mail service employing her husband.

Barrymore could ham it up with the best of them, but for all his character's bellowing he's relatively restrained in one of his last authority-figure roles before he basically became a comic character actor. He once again gets upstaged in his scenes with his older brother Lionel, a shameless scene stealer cast as his eczema-suffering henchman, in their fifth and final teaming on screen.

The film is set during a 24-hour period during which John B. inaugurates very dangerous night flying over the Andes, despite the objections of the firm's president (veteran heavy C. Henry Gordon in a very rare sympathetic role).

After completion of principal photography, editor Hal Kern suggested to Selznick (who had been focused on an even more troubled production, Howard Hawks and Jack Conway's "Viva Villa'') that the audience needed more of a rooting interest than mail crossing the Andes on its way to Europe.

Though MGM troubleshooter Wells Root, and possibly others, also toiled without credit on the script, Selznick himself may have concocted the added framing story about serum being ferried across the Andes to battle a Polio epidemic. This sub-plot, supposedly based on an incident in the childhood of Selznick's brother Myron, was recycled six years later in Selznick's production of "Made For Each Other.''  

 

Shots of the package containing the serum were edited into an already-filmed scenes of another pilot crossing the Andes despite perilous downdrafts -- a playboy portrayed by Robert Montgomery, who pretty much disappears into the arms of a prostitute at the movie's midway point. After he lands in Buenos Aires, it's up to yet another pilot (William Gargan as an alleged Brazilian) to take off at midnight for Rio to relay the serum. A very glamorous-looking Myrna Loy (last billed above the cedits) has a couple of scenes as Gargan's concerned wife.

The underrated Brown -- MGM's top director of the era and a longtime pilot himself -- does his best work with the stunningly beautiful flying sequences (with the Rockies standing in for the Andes), photographed by Elmer Dyer. Where there's clearly some fakery as well, overall the flying shots are far more impressive than the miniature work in the most famous film about mail flyers -- "Only Angels Have Wings'' -- even if the patchwork narrative of "Night Flight'' never soars close to the heights of Hawks' film. This is an elaborate MGM production, though, with glamorous photography of the ladies by Oliver T. Marsh, exemplary art direction by Alexander Toluboff (Cedric Gibbons was off directing "Tarzan and His Mate'') and one of Herbert Stothart's best scores (which heavily samples Beethoven). 

"Night Flight'' is well worth seeing for these flying scenes and Gable's performance, and for filling in a missing chapter of Brown's neglected filmography. Hopefully, Warner will eventually succeed in its longtime effort to untie the legal knots surrounding another, even better Brown film from 1933: "Letty Lynton'' starring Joan Crawford, out of circulation since MGM lost a plagirism suit in the 1930s.

Warners' on-demand service, the Warner Archive Collection , has released a brace of Brown's films over the past two years, including the racial drama "Intruder in the Dust'' (perhaps his best), the superb homefront World War II drama "The Human Comedy'' and "They Met in Bombay,'' a delighful if forgotten comedy with Gable and Rosalind Russell. WAC also has a double feature DVD of Victor Fleming's "White Sister'' with Gable and Hayes, along with its 1923 silent film version directed by Henry King (another neglected director) and starring Lillian Gish and Ronald Colman.

A weary Gable can be seen at the other end of his career in John Huston's fascinating contemporary western drama "The Misfits'' (1961), just out on Blu-ray from MGM. Besides being Gable's swansong -- he died before its release -- also the bittersweet final completed film of Marilyn Monroe.  MGM is also offering the Blu-ray debut of Billy Wilder's "Some Like It Hot" from the year before. Both show just how great older black-and-white films can look on the high-definition format.

A decade before "The Misfits'' when both were working at MGM, Huston had hoped to team Gable with Huston's pal Humphrey Bogart in an adaptation of Rudyard Kipling's "The Man Who Would Be King.'' The film didn't end up getting made until a quarter-century later, with Sean Connery and Michael Caine as soldiers of fortune (and Christopher Plummer as Kipling) for Allied Artists. This wonderful adventure is making its Blu-ray today in a splendid-looking edition from Warner. My colleague Kyle Smith a nice appreciation on this 1975 classic here .

As for the great John Barrymore, there are three prime examples of his silent work ("Beau Brummell,'' "Don Juan'' and "A Man in Love'') available from the Warner Archive, as well as his talkie debut (as Richard III in a two-strip Technicolor sequence) in the all-star "Show of Shows,'' as well as "Rasputin and the Empress,'' where he battles for footage with siblings Lionel and Ethel in the title roles.

Here's hoping the archive offers more of the esteemed John B.'s neglected sound films that Warner controls: "Arsene Lupin'' (perhaps his most satifying teaming with Lionel), the early sound version of "Moby Dick'' (they also have a silent edition starring J.B.), "Svengali'' (long trapped in public-domain hell), "The Mad Genius," "Reunion in Vienna,'' "State's Attorney,'' "Long-Lost Father,'' "Maytime,'' Garson Kanin's wonderful "The Great Man Votes'' and even Barrymore's sad screen farewell, spoofing his image in the Kay Kyser musical comedy "Playmates.''

Howard Zieff's "Hearts of the West'' (1975), starring a young Jeff Bridges as a B-western star in the 1930s and featuring Andy Griffith, Blythe Danner and Alan Arkin, is probably today's most notable release at the Warner Archive Collection.

Six action films from the '60s and '70s making their DVD debuts  at WAC -- most notably Jack Cardiff's cult fave "Dark of the Sun'' (1968) with Rod Taylor as the leader of band of mercenaries in Africa -- are included in a big Father's Day sale ($15 instead of the usual $20 list) covering more than 100 titles altogether. 

The others newcomers are Franklin Schaffner's "The Double Man" (1967) with Yul Brenner; "Assignment to Kill" (1969) with Patrick O'Neal and John Gielgud; "24 Hours to Kill" (1965) with Lex Barker and Mickey Rooney; John Derek's "Once Before I Die" (1965) starring himself and Ursula Andress; and "Avalanche Express" (1979) with Lee Marvin and Robert Shaw.

WAC is also offering Richard Thorpe's "The Great Caruso'' (1951) starring Mario Lanza as the famed opera singer, previously available only as an exclusive from Critics Choice.  WAC is taking pre-orders for Jean Renoir's "The Woman on the Beach'' (1947) with Joan Bennett and Robert Ryan for release on June 21.

According to Classic Flix, releases this month from the MGM Limited Editon MOD program will include Budd Boetticher's "The Killer is Loose'' (1956) with Joseph Cotten; Michael Curtiz' "Man in the Net'' (1959) with Alan Ladd; Gordon Douglas' "Call Me Bwana'' (1963) a Bob Hope farce with Anita Ekberg, Edie Adams and Arnold Palmer; and David Swift's "Love Is a Ball'' (1963) starring Glenn Ford, Hope Lange and Charles Boyer.

Also reportedly on MGM's docket are Bryon Haskin's "Return to Treasure Island" (1954) with Robert Newton reprising his role as Long John Silver (the film's alternate title);  Haskin's "The Boss" (1956) with John Payne;  Michael Curtiz' "The Man in the Net' (1959) starring Alan Ladd; and "Johnny Cool'' (1963) with an irresistible lineup of Henry Silva, Elizabeth Montgomery, Sammy Davis Jr., Jim Backus, Joey Bishop, Marc Lawrence, John McGiver, Mort Sahl, Telly Savalas and Elisa Cook Jr.

VCI's latest round of releases from the J. Arthur Rank library on July 21 includes "Ferry to Hong Kong'' (1959) starring Orson Welles, "Robbery Under Arms'' (1957) with Peter Finch and a pair starring Dirk Bogarde: "Penny Princess'' (1952) and "Simba'' (1955).

Olive Films' ongoing mining of Paramount's deep catalogue will produce Eugene Lourie's super-weird "The Colossus of New York'' (1958) with Otto Kruger on Aug. 16. Two weeks later will see the scheduled arrival of Jerry Hopper's "The Atomic City'' (1952) starring Gene Barry and Lydia Clarke (Mrs. Charlton Heston).

Over at the Twilight Time, the latest titles licensed from Fox include Ralph Nelson's aviation drama "Fate is the Hunter'' (1965) with Glenn Ford and Rod Taylor and, upcoming, Henry Hathaway's "Woman Obsessed'' (1959), a CinemaScope  adventure set on the Canadian frontier with Susan Hayward and Stephen Boyd.

The National Film Preservation Foundation has set "Treasures 5: The West, 1898-1938,'' for release on Sept. 28 via Image Entertainment. The three-disc set includes more than 10 hours of restored rarieties, including Victor Fleming's "Mantrap'' (1926) starring Clara Bow, Gregory LaCava's satirical comedy "Womanhandled'' (1925) with Richard Dix, W.S. Van Dyke's "The Lady of the Dugout'' (1918) with outlaw-turned-actor Al Jennings; and Thomas Ince's "Last of the Line'' (1914) starring Sessue Hayakawa.

On the Blu-ray front, The Digital Bits is quoting its studio sources as confirming that Warner will be releasing "A Streetcar Named Desire,'' "The Postman Always Rings Twice'' (presumably the John Garfield version; the studio also owns the remake with Jack Nicholson as well as Luchino Visconti's unauthorized "Obsessione'') and Vincente Minnelli's "Meet Me in St. Louis'' with Judy Garland in high definition sometime before the end of the year. Universal will reportedly be putting out Hitchcock's "The Birds.'' There have been no official announcements yet.