My DVD is a region 2, but I cannot now recall where I bought it from. This is the nearest listing that Amazon run, so...
End of the Great War, Paris - four young U.S. pilots are discharged from hospital, for fairly minor ailments, but they will never will fly again. Thousands of miles from home and all sense of responsibilities abandoned, they just yearn to get 'tight'. Hitting the bright lights and seeking the gaiety takes away the memories and the pain. Whilst out, they encounter the free-spirited Nikki.
She lives off her wealthy mother and so, soon, we are treated to the antics of the young at the time and for the most part, it's light, frothy and often funny nonsense. When I read that it was about wounded servicemen being repatriated, I was sort of expecting a 'The Best Years Of Our Lives' but for the First War. There is very little similarity and you could think, for the worse. The band of new friends then travel by train to Lisbon - and continue as before, until tragedy strikes.
Apparently, this "lost generation" of American expatriates who found themselves in Paris or Madrid in the 1920s, were characters beloved by authors F Scott Fitzgerald (who coined the phrase) and Ernest Hemingway.
To my eyes, it works best as a snapshot of a time and a certain place and for its spritely humour. I'm sure 1930's Depression-hit Hollywood wasn't the place for a serious and possibly maudlin look at War. If ever there was a film that carried the expression "What's the idea?" to the point of repetition, it's this one.
