Good concept, poorly executed.

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

I saw this movie once as a kid on the late-late show and fell in love with it.It took 30+ years, but I recently did find it on DVD - it wasn't cheap, either - in a catalog that specialized in war movies. We watched it last night for the first time. The audio was good, however it was grainy and had the trailers between reels. Even so, it was better than I remembered it. I was also impressed at how true it was to the play.The catalog is around here someplace. If you're sincere in finding it, fire me a missive and I'll see if I can get you the info. cartwrightbride@yahoo.com

Has anyone been able to buy this movie? My Uncle "Hutch" was a Real (not Reel) pilot who is seen tossing his wings in the air and then snatching them with his fist as he was awarded his pilot's wings. He's only on screen a few seconds but my family would love to have the movie. He was killed in a dogfight over Italy, he was only 24 at the time. Do we know the film studio that made it?Or has anyone seen it at a video store, like Blockbuster? I wish they would make entire catalogs of these old movies available as it is so cheap to make DVD's these days.Please email me at nfny40@yahoo.com if you know where I can buy a copy. Thank you.

William Wyler was to have directed this adaptation of Moss Hart's hit Broadway play with music/ recruiting poster-vivant, but his own military commitments intervened and it went to a most unlikely helmsman: George Cukor. The "women's director" has a sure touch on the many documentary-like sequences of Air Corps training, and he invests it with more unhackneyed humanity than the genre generally allowed, particularly in wartime. Sure, the gee-whiz (and entirely white, save for one unbilled Chinese-American recruit) bunch of newbies are nicer and more wholesome than in real life, and the speechifying about home and Mom and the wife and kid gets pretty thick, but it's efficient propaganda and undeniably stirring. Notable, too, for the all-military male cast, several of whom didn't reemerge for years: Lon McAllister, Edmond O'Brien, Martin Ritt, Red Buttons (in drag, as an Andrews Sister), Peter Lind Hayes, Karl Malden, Kevin McCarthy, Gary Merrill, Lee J. Cobb, and Don Taylor. Also for a very early glimpse of Judy Holliday, who doesn't show up till an hour and a half into the picture but has some good little sequences as O'Brien's worried-sick Brooklyn spouse. Too bad its rights are in a tangle and the only print anyone knows of is 16mm; evidently, after Twentieth Century Fox released it (to considerable success), the rights reverted to the Army, and if there's a good 35mm print out there, it probably lies somewhere in the bowels of the Pentagon. It's disingenuous and corny in spots, but it also captures the rigors of military training and the terrors of war vividly, and it deserves to be more widely seen.

As has been noted, this is one wartime film that got it right. Apart from the accurate depiction of army flight training, WV probably remains the only movie featuring the Consolidated B-24. A flight instructor who helped with the film reports that most of the cast got along well with the supporting officers and men, the exception being Edmund O'Brien. While filming an engine-start sequence he noted the usual "fire guard" with the extinguisher and became exceedingly nervous. Finally he "abandoned ship" and refused to proceed with the shot. Considering that his performance was witnessed by genuine airmen, let alone some combat veterans, EO's stock plummeted on base.