Fresh and Exciting

Boring

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

This is truly an historical film which not only contains the only color footage of Jean Harlow in a movie, and helped make her a star ("would you be shocked if I put on something more comfortable?"), but some of the best WW I airplane aerial sequences ever put on the screen (it was nominated for a Cinematography Oscar). Of course, this is due to the fact that aviator gazillionaire Howard Hughes produced, directed, and even filmed part of it. In fact, this film was initially going to be a silent with Greta Nissen in the Harlow role. But, during the time it was being made, the transformation from silent films to "talkies" was taking place. So, having more money than God, Hughes decided to reshoot most of it, requiring that he replace the Norwegian actress with Harlow.The story begins with three Oxford classmates, brothers Monte (Ben Lyon) and Roy (James Hall) Rutledge and their German friend Karl Armstedt (John Darrow), sharing a flat in pre-war Germany and fully enjoying the perks. Roy has a girl, Helen (Harlow), back home who he's constantly referring to, while Monte plays the field to excess. In fact, he's even gotten mixed up with a Baroness (Jane Winton), the wife of a German officer Baron Von Kranz (Lucien Prival, a recognizable character actor). When the Baron returns home prematurely, he catches Monte with his wife and challenges him to a duel. Since Monte is a man of little character, he flees back home to school at Oxford. His noble brother, Roy, pretends to be Monte, accepting the challenge to protect his name from disgrace. Though he is wounded, he returns to school and never mentions it to his brother.War breaks out and classmate Karl is summoned to return to Germany to serve. Roy enlists, but of course Monte does not. However, while wanting to kiss the pretty girl at a recruitment station, he accidentally signs up too. Before they go off to war, Roy wants to introduce his brother to his girl, whom Monte assumes must be a "dog". When they meet, both are pleasantly surprised (with Harlow winning the "look 'em over" staring contest;-) and we learn that Helen isn't as faithful to Roy as he thinks she is. This leads to a first "date" affair (and Harlow's signature line, above) but when Roy regrets his infidelity, perhaps for the first time in his life, it causes a rift between the two illicit lovers before he and his brother head off to war.One spectacular visual sequence involves Karl as the bombardier on a German Zeppelin that infiltrates London. Unbeknownst to the ship's commander, he guides it through the fog in order to drop its bombs harmlessly into a lake on the outskirts of the city. Alerted to the Zeppelin's presence, the Allies send several planes to intercept it and the chase is on. When the ship's commander needs more height to avoid their pursuit, and after throwing all non-essential equipment overboard doesn't work, he has the bombardier's pod's cable cut, dropping Karl to his death. He then orders all unnecessary personnel to jump overboard. The commander's ruthlessness almost succeeds, as his gunners shoot down all but one of the planes. However, the last plane utilizes a kamikaze maneuver, sacrificing himself and plane into the heart of the "big balloon".Roy and Monte are both trained as pilots and must fly nightly patrols. Since nearly every night means the end of at least one of the pilots, Monte does his best to avoid the duty. However, when Roy finally learns Helen doesn't love him (serving as a waitress on the war front, he catches her with a ranking officer) and signs up for a risky mission of great importance, his brother's bravery convinces Monte to also volunteer for the effort.The film's most spectacular visual scenes follow and dominate the rest of the film, but there is also a rather clever plot device used to end the drama between the brothers and involving Von Kranz.

In 1927, Howard Hughes began production on a epic featuring the pilots of World War I that would be heavy on aeronautical thrills much in the same vein as "Wings". However, Hughes just could not stop tinkering with his pet project, eventually running the production cost up to four million dollars. This movie is a good example of not being able to tell where Hughes' OCD ends and his desire for perfection begins. However, it all paid off in the end, although it took years. Eventually the film did make eight million dollars, making it one of the top money-making films of the 1930's.There are two major flying sequences in the movie, part of which were actually filmed by Hughes since he couldn't get a professional cameraman to take the kind of chances involved. 1927's "Wings" had some great aerial combat, and had actually won a special Academy Award for engineering, but this film really outstrips it in daring and realism. For example, there are thirty or forty biplanes spinning around one another in one breathtaking combat sequence. Hughes pulled these scenes off largely by employing actual veteran flyers and ex-doughboys eager to show off their skill on camera in return for the big bucks Hughes was offering. However, after three of them died in the extreme sequences, the rest refused to fly for the final scene, saying that they were sure to crash. Hughes decided to fly the scene himself, getting the needed shot. However, just as the pilots had predicted, he also crashed the plane, although he escaped with relatively minor injuries. The main dirigible model was built on a vast scale, and when it explodes (in partial color) the effect is impressive. For the final aerial scene, Hughes used an authentic rebuilt German Gotha biplane bomber.Politically, this film has quite a bit of anti-German sensationalism. For example, the German dirigible commander decides to lighten his ship by ordering his own crew to jump to their deaths. In this film, although there is one "good" German - Roy and Monte's Oxford pal Karl - the women are all faithless. There are no adoring mothers or girlfriends waiting for our airmen to return home in this movie. This is especially true of Jean Harlow's character, Helen. She toys with Roy's heart while every man in uniform becomes her target of opportunity. Helen's outfits are all very revealing and definitely pre-code. There is also plenty of rough language between the pilots, especially when they are aloft. Although this is probably quite realistic in terms of what went on, this also could only happen in the pre-code era. Hughes knew the so-called "code" had no teeth in the era in which this film was made, although his stunts caused him real trouble in his later films.It's hard to tell from the film if Hughes had any real hard and fast feelings about World War I or war in general, or if it was just him inserting the right sense of showmanship at appropriate places to stir up the audience. For example, in one scene a man demonstrating in the street preaches that it is folly to fight a war that is really about capitalism being impeded by the petty inter-fighting of the various European powers, and is beaten by the crowd as a result. But strangely enough, when that line of reasoning is later adopted by the "bad" brother Monte, although much less eloquently, he is deemed a coward. Monte tries to redeem himself by volunteering for a dangerous aerial mission, but even then he has to be dragged to execute the assignment by his brother. When both brothers are captured and Monte wants to tell everything about the pending British attack to his German captors in order to save himself, brother Roy comes up with a clever but unpleasant solution.This is really great entertainment if you are at all interested in either film or aviation history.

This action movie was directed by Howard Hughes, and it stars Ben Lyon, James Hall, and Jean Harlow. Monte Rutledge (Lyon) and Roy Rutledge (Hall) are brothers attending Oxford. If I have them straight, Roy is straitlaced and Monte is a womanizer and coward. Helen (Harlow) is Roy's girlfriend, and he thinks she's swell. However, she's a woman of easy virtue who sets herself up to be pursued by every man that's attractive to her, including Monte who doesn't say no.NOTE: THERE ARE SPOILERS IN THE FOLLOWING REVIEWThere's a long, not very interesting beginning to this two-hour epic in which we're set up with the back story. We are shown that Monte is a cowardly womanizer and that Roy stands up for his brother to save the family name. We learn that Helen lets Roy think she's a moral, upstanding girl, but she seduces every man she wants, and Roy is so moral he can't see what's really going on. Okay, enough of that. We learn that Jean Harlow can't do an English accent at all and that Messrs. Lyon and Hall aren't too good at it.Finally, World War I breaks out, and Roy and Monte join the Royal Flying Corps, Helen is a volunteer for the canteens, and they all end up in or around Paris. Monte starts claiming he's sick and can't fly all his missions, so others are being sent instead, getting shot down in his place. The squadron resents him, and he volunteers for a dangerous mission to prove he's not yellow. Roy volunteers to fly it with him. Finally, the action starts.Lyon is quite good as the yellow coward, and I actually felt sympathy for him in several scenes. Hughes was not as his best as director here, and the script and dialogue were not the greatest. "It's getting dark," Monte says, as he lays dying (or lies dying -- who knows these days which is which -- maybe he dies lying). "Roy! Where are you?" even though Roy is holding him in his arms. Several of the scenes were unintentionally hilarious, a mix of the Three Stooges and Monte Python's Flying Circus, which is ironic since the brothers are being chased by someone else's Flying Circus of World War I.The best scenes are the bombing of the ammo depot and the dog fight. I can't imagine how they choreographed and arranged the dog fight scenes, with one mid-air collision between planes -- real planes, really colliding. There were camera planes filming the action and cameras mounted on the planes showing the pilots, sky, and earth in all the chaos of rolls, spins, and dives.I felt bad for Monte in the bomber. The German fighters are faster, and he can see them catching up. There's nothing to be done -- they can't dodge them in the bomber, they can't fly faster; all Monte can do is plead for Roy (who's piloting the aircraft) to do something. He's a coward who can see his death approaching, and he can't run away this time, he can't leave it to Roy to get him out of it.But eventually the real drama ends, and we're back in the staged dialogue and campy acting. I'm not sure I recommend this movie for casual watching. It's interesting to see the blonde bombshell at the age of 18 or 19 -- she was quite a good actress, much more natural than Lyon and Hall. This movie was her big break after a few years of bit parts, often uncredited. Her costumes here are revealing, and the version of "Hell's Angels" I saw on DVD had some scenes in color, showing off her costumes and her to great effect. (She died of an infection at the age of 26, so her career was quite short.)And it's interesting to watch a movie directed by Howard Hughes. But it turns out Mr. Hughes wasn't all that good with actors. Like Cecil B. DeMille, he needed action and spectacle. But the action and spectacle are great. There are scenes with a Zeppelin bombing London that are breathtaking, and when Hughes has actors in action, he was quite good with them. Unfortunately, too much of this movie was outside Howard Hughes's area of greatest competence.

Ground explosion debris blasting up towards the overhead camera; cameras fixed to aircraft fuselages while the pilot loops the plane; Fokker DVII's biplanes manoeuvring at what seems close to their airframe limits. There are amazing flight sequences and aerial camera work in this film - of such breathtaking quality it makes much of the aerial footage in The Blue Max (1966) and Aces High (1976) look tame.Whatever deficiencies the storyline or some of the acting may have, as others have noted, these are far outweighed by the flight sequences. The model Zeppelin is particularly well done for its time. And if main acting might be deficient, the stunt pilot Frank Clarke (as Lt. von Bruen) acts a memorable response to the the surprise bombing.