and takes off, using his autopilot to help Sheila land. While in the air, Ken talks to Sheila about his desperation of being blind and not having any future. His intention is to bring her to the ground and then fly until he runs out of fuel and crashes. Sheila tries to dissuade him, but he is determined. The two pilots make it down, but Sheila deliberately crashes into Ken's aircraft to make sure that he will not try to kill himself. A huge crowd has gathered at the airport. As the two greet the public and the press, Ken sees flashes of light from the exploding flash bulbs of the photographers. Ken and Sheila embrace as their car continues through the throng of well-wishers. Cast Myrna Loy as Sheila Mason Cary Grant as Ken Gordon Roscoe Karns as Nick Williams Hobart Cavanaugh as Mac Dean Jagger as Top Harmon Russell Hopton as Jake Brashear Matt McHugh as 1st Mechanic Graham McNamee as Radio Announcer Lightning the dog Production Principal photography for Wings in the Dark began on October 22, 1934. Captain Earl H. Robinson was the technical advisor on the film and adapted the screenplay with Dale Van Every. Amelia Earhart also visited the set as a consultant. Ken Gordon's aircraft is a Lockheed Model 8 Sirius; other aircraft include a Travel Air B 4000, flown by Sheila Mason, and a Lockheed Vega 5B. Reception In his review for The New York Times, film critic Andre Sennwald described the film as "... a pleasantly performed and skillfully filmed melodrama of the peacetime airways which is hampered by an addle-pated narrative. High altitudes have a tendency to make scenarists just a trifle giddy, with the result that the big climax of the Paramount's new photoplay has the appearance of having been composed during a tail spin." Nell Shipman, one of the writers of the original story "Eyes of the Eagle", which pivoted upon a fictionalized version of Amelia Earhart, whom Shipman knew personally, was extremely disappointed by Myrna Loy's performance and the diminishing of the seeing eye dog as one of the main characters. Graham Greene called the film "as sentimental as it is improbable," but "... as exciting as it is naive." Aviation historians consider Wings in the Dark one of a number of poorly done aviation films made during the early part of the Depression. References Notes Citations