You won't be disappointed!

Pretty Good

It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Copyright 25 August 1930 by First National Pictures, Inc. New York opening at the Winter Garden, 10 July 1930. U.S. release: 10 August 1930. 12 reels. 9,500 feet. 105 minutes. Television title: FLIGHT COMMANDER.NOTES: John Monk Saunders was honored for his Original Story (defeating Doorway to Hell, The Public Enemy, Laughter and Smart Money) by The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. COMMENT: You won't find The Dawn Patrol on any Best Films of the Year lists. In fact, it doesn't even make The New York Times supplementary list of "35 worthy pictures". The reason is simply that it's not very good. In fact it's the sort of movie that gives "old movies" their undeservedly bad name. (Amazing isn't it that this movie is shown constantly on television, while hundreds of far superior movies of the same vintage never see the light of day?) Jumpy continuity made even more jerky by the use of silent captions, dated dialogue and stilted acting, make The Dawn Patrol a bit of a chore to sit through - especially on the ground. (No wonder Barthelmess' career declined, even though his subsequent films show him in far better light!) Fortunately, when it gets into the air, interest rises sharply - thanks to the breathtaking skill of Dyer's aerial camerawork. These scenes - and in fact all the exciting action material - were re-used (slightly trimmed) in the 1938 re-make directed by Edmund Goulding), which has the rare honor of being a re-make which is better than the original, thanks to the skills of its superior cast - Basil Rathbone, Errol Flynn, David Niven, Donald Crisp, Melville Cooper and Barry Fitzgerald.

Having a fondness for a lot of Howard Hawks' films, there was an interest in seeing one of his earliest efforts (his ninth film in fact and his first talkie). 'The Dawn Patrol' is not one of Hawks' best and there is a preference for the 1938 film with Errol Flynn, despite there being the argument of it being pointless it did feel more polished, more natural and every bit as emotional.1930's 'The Dawn Patrol' does suffer a little from limitations caused in the transition from silent to talkie. The sound quality is primitive and very static, a music score would have helped hugely with providing even more impact and most likely masking this issue. The script can come over as creaky and artificial, and the pacing also has its creaky moments and lacks tautness.On the other hand, Hawks directs adroitly, and the photography and scenery have a grittiness and luminous quality at all. The flying sequences still come over as remarkably powerful and rousing today, and most of the script is thoughtful and gripping, heavy-handedness wasn't too big an issue here.'The Dawn Patrol' has a compelling story, perfectly conveying the futility and passion of war, the comrades' horrors and conflicts and showing grace even under pressure.Characters are not stereotypes in any way, instead compellingly real characters with human and relatable conflicts. The acting is remarkably good for such an early talkie, of course there is some theatricality which to me wasn't that grave a problem. Can find nothing to fault Richard Barthelmess, Douglas Fairbanks Jnr or Neil Hamilton, who all perform with authority and poignancy.Overall, a good film if not the greatest air epic. 7/10 Bethany Cox

This is what film-making is all about! The Vitaphone audio recording process challenges itself almost continuously in this early talkie. You aurally count the number of planes coming in (off-camera) while watching the reaction of the principals inside the office. You even get the correct fidelity of the wind-up gramophone as characters talk over it. Meanwhile, you watch aerial dogfights that switch seamlessly from soundstage re-creations to actual footage made by a camera mounted at the front of an aeroplane, without any jarring sense of displacement. The melodrama remains palpable with very little over-acting. I'm taking one point off for that occasional over-acting, and for the really dumb use of Southern California semi-desert topography in which the planes take off and land. It wouldn't have been that hard to find a location with a few more trees and more grass. Oh, well. The movie still must have knocked the original audiences' socks off.

Many on this board have compared this movie to TOP GUN which is a good movie but lacks Dawn Patrol's depth.The early version of DAWN PATROL tells a complex tale of leadership and command best illustrated by the scene in which the commanding officer is promoted out of the unit and command falls into the hands of his highly critical, hot dog, second in command. I don't remember exactly was the CO said when he opened the orders relieving him. I believe the line goes, "Now see what you can do now that you can't do everything you want." The tension between the commander and his second is what find to be the most interesting part of the movie. Top Gun simply lacks that type of insight. Top Gun is more of an adventure story of a hot dog pilot.Movies comparable to Dawn Patrol in the military war genre which attain the understanding of the conflict at the top.are Major Dundee, Twelve O'Clock High and surprisingly the John Wayne film Flying Leathernecks.This film was remade in 1938 with Errol Flynn in the lead role. I'm told that it was so gripping that French spies on the Luxembourg border went to see it and missed the onset of the German invasion.