The Man Who Found Himself * (1937, John Beal, Joan Fontaine, Philip Huston) – Classic Movie Review 13,676

The 1937 RKO black and white American aviation drama film The Man Who Found Himself stars John Beal and 19-year-old Joan Fontaine in her first starring role.

Director Lew Landers’s 1937 RKO black and white American aviation drama film The Man Who Found Himself [Wings of Mercy] stars John Beal, Joan Fontaine, and Philip Huston.

Nurse Doris King (Joan Fontaine) prompts agonising Dr James ‘Jim’ Stanton (John Beal) off the streets as a bum and back on the rails as a surgeon. The twist here is that the doctor now works in a flying hospital.

‘Jim’ Stanton is a conscientious surgeon, but pursues his dangerous hobby of flying in his spare time. Jim crashes, his married woman passenger is killed. Jim becomes a hobo, is arrested for vagrancy and put to work on an LA road crew.

The Man Who Found Himself tells an ordinary yarn with a plodding script and an over-reverential tone, though it tries to be a sincere and complex film, examining the motivations of doctors and pilots. But the young and lovely Joan Fontaine (aged 19, in her first starring role) brings a breath of fresh air with her attractive performance, outclassing everybody else, though there is entertaining support from scene-stealing Jimmy Conlin, Dwight Frye and Billy Gilbert.

The screenplay by J Robert Bren, Edmund L Hartmann, Gladys V Atwater and Thomas Lennon is based on the unpublished story Wings of Mercy by Alice Curtis.

RKO contract player Joan Fontaine had already appeared in No More Ladies (1935), A Million to One (1937) and Quality Street (1937).

It was shot in January and February 1937.

Cast: John Beal, Joan Fontaine, Philip Huston, Jane Walsh, George Irving, Jimmy Conlin, Frank M Thomas, Diana Gibson, Dwight Frye, Billy Gilbert.

Forgotten star John Beal (born James Alexander Bliedung, August 13, 1909 – April 26, 1997) had a good film career from 1933 to his final film The Firm in 1993.

© Derek Winnert 2025 – Classic Movie Review 13,676

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