DESTINY (1944)
Article #454 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 6-12-2002
Posting date: 11-5-2002

An ex-convict finds himself on the run again after getting tricked into helping a bank robber.

This movie was built around a story that was left off of the movie FLESH AND FANTASY, about a farm girl’s encounter with a desperate criminal. The farm girl has psychic powers that cause nature to come to her aid. This is the fantastic aspect of the movie, but it doesn’t come into play until the last half of the movie, and I suspect these sequences were part of the original story, while the preachy scenes about trusting people were all part of the footage that was added to expand it to a full length feature. After watching this, I’d like to see what the short had been like without the added footage; the dream sequence involving the powers of nature is far and away the best thing in the movie. In this form, the movie is watchable, but somewhat muddled and (as noted before) preachy; it’s especially hard to believe when the warden gives the ex-con a sermon on learning to trust people as he’s releasing him from prison. I remember reading somewhere that in order to expand the movie, they had to change the character of the criminal, and I can see what they mean. Still, this is an interesting little oddity, and worth a watch.