Bruce Loeb on Piano After the financial near-failure of Voyage Imaginaire, René Clair turned his talents to more commercial fare for a time, although he could not resist embedding elements of fantasy and the avant-garde into this adventure tale based on a popular novel. Charles Vanel stars as an airplane pilot who loses his way in a storm and crash lands near a mysterious Czech chateau. His hosts are an enigmatic countess (Lilian Hall-Davis) who seems to lead a double life as a Baltic agent provocateur; and her weird family, including a mad sister (Sandra Milowanoff). They draw the flier into an intricate series of intrigues and amours. The film has the mark of Clair's intention (stated in 1925) to "introduce, by a sort of ruse, as many purely visual motifs as possible into a scenario written to please everyone." Thus light and shadow speak more eloquently than the script in this film, which was also Clair's first liaison with the brilliant art director Lazare Meerson.