Fantastic!

A Brilliant Conflict

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

This isn't a review but this is the only website I know of that even remotely deals with subtle nuances one might have seen in a little known movie that features the lovely Gene Tierney in one of her first big films. This little gem directed by the great William Wellman has a scene in it where Gene steps out of the shower with ringlets in her hair that were captured by the Technicolor light in such a way as to take my breath away and have never forgotten it. Her hair was usually shown dry and perfectly coiffed and this is the only movie of hers I know where those fantastic ringlets were shown.Thank you, IMDb for letting this love-sick Gene Tierney fan express his admiration for an actress from Hollywood's Golden Age.

When William Wellman does a film about his favorite subject aviation you can always be sure that the flying sequences will be among the best ever done in a given era. Wellman who was a member of the famed Lafayette Escadrille in World War I made all his aviation pictures with precision, care, and love. Thunder Birds: Soldiers Of The Air is no exception.Old World War I ace Preston Foster is to old for combat in this new World War, but he volunteers to be a civilian instructor at ThunderBird Field in Arizona for a new generation of fliers. The head of the base Jack Holt assigns Foster to Reginald Denny's British air cadets doing their training for the RAF in America. One of them is John Sutton who is the son of a British ace from the last war and a friend of Foster's who was killed.It doesn't look like Sutton has the right stuff and that's the considered opinion of all save Foster. Sutton does have some issues but he's determined to carry on in the family aviation tradition even though his original training is for the medical corps. His brother was killed on a bombing run into Europe and Sutton feels this is what he must do.Complicating things is the fact that both Foster and Sutton fall for Gene Tierney. Still Foster keeps his job and love life separate, but he's old enough and wise enough to keep it apart.Darryl Zanuck splurged for color on this film, not something normally done in the wartime cinema. It always seemed that Fox did use color more than any other of the major studios. It certainly adds to Bill Wellman's aviation sequences. Look fast and you'll see Peter Lawford as one of the British cadets. And in a flashback sequence as Sutton's grandmother Dame May Witty borrows a bit from her character from Mrs. Miniver and shows she hasn't lost any of the right stuff herself.Aviation buffs will love Thunder Birds: Soldiers Of The Air. The rest of us will find it more than acceptable.

The plot is nothing much new. An older, experienced aviator (Preston Foster) is hired as a civilian instructor at Thunder Bird Airfield in Arizona. His missions: (1) To shepherd a class of American, British, and Chinese novices through primary flight training, and (2) to woo an old girl friend, Gene Tierney, who happens to live on a ranch next to the field.One of his British students is the elegant-sounding and clean-cut young John Sutton. The poor guy used to be a doctor but then volunteered for the RAF, a position for which he seems manifestly unsuited. He gets airsick and is acrophobic, like me. Encouraged by his aunt, the no-nonsense Dame May Witty, he does his best to overcome his defects. After some initial flights, Foster says he's going to wash Sutton out but Sutton begs for another chance and Foster relents, for now.That's not all that's going on though. The ability to fly is one thing, but then there's Gene Tierney to contend with. Wow. Sutton and his co-cadet Richard Haydn (the voice of the caterpillar in "Alice in Wonderland") run into Gene Tierney in a dress shop. They admire her legs and she taunts them, flirtatiously, and leads them on. Preston's love for Tierney, if that's what it is, in unrequited but Tierney and Sutton get along quite well together. Did I mention her legs? Did I mention her facial features? She looks like the result of a mating between a Chinese porcelain doll and a fox.But never mind the romance. That's ground. The figure is the flying. The director, William Wellman, was a flier himself and though this was strictly a contractual obligation, his fascination with airplanes illuminates the film. I can only think of a few other films that have so successfully captured the exuberance of flying biplanes in their colorful pre-war paint schemes in the blue and crystalline air of Arizona. Such beauty for such an ugly end.If you find the romantic theme music familiar or appealing, it's written by Harry Warren for another movie about ice skating in the same year, 1942. The title is "There Will Never Be Another You," and it's entered the Great American Songbook. You can download it from anywhere.There's not much else to be said about the movie. The performances are all professional, the plot is the result of innumerable recyclings, and the visual imagery is splendor itself, especially the girl and the airplanes. Did I mention her legs? A cheerful and diverting way to spend an hour and a half.

My wife's uncle , George Wood ,was an RAF trainee Sergeant Pilot at the Base when this film was made . The film as part of its propaganda purpose made use of his , and other courses , and he appears full head and shoulders in a scanned shot of a parade . He looks like a young boy . He completed his training and went on to fly Wellington Bombers , regrettably he was shot down over Holland in 1943 . We knew he had appeared in a film but were not sure of the title and by chance came across a Cinema Poster for Thunder Birds on the Internet and this showed RAF personnel marching past aircraft . We had a black and white photograph of him standing by similar aircraft and thus established a possible link . We were subsequently able to obtain a copy of the film . The aerial shots are astounding and do seem ahead of their time .