Errol Flynn is a Navy doctor who witnesses the death of a flier and completes a program to become a flight surgeon. The regular aviators resent him, especially the squadron commander, Fred MacMurray. But Flynn and his earnest colleague, Ralph Bellamy, solve one problem after another in aviation medicine, climaxing with the successful test of a pressure suit that costs MacMurray his life. The story, interesting as it is, is overwhelmed by the magniloquent visual imagery. All the flight scenes, except for a second or two, were shot in the skies over San Diego, and they are simply gorgeous. They don't necessarily capture the sensation of being air born, of loosing the surly bonds of earth and all that, but the pictures are captivating.
What splashes of color! The navy blue uniforms glittering with gold, the taupe summer dress, the subfusc leather flight jackets and while silk scarves, the haricot green oxygen tubes, the maize life jackets, the cornflower blue skies and puffy bone-white cumulus formations. And the sleek airplanes themselves with their gay, pre-war paint schemes: teal blue tails, Chinese red cowlings, canary yellow wings with diagonal stripes of heliotrope, the dashing squadron insignia of fuchsia and chartreuse, and -- and -- wait. A tragedy. My thesaurus just burst its heart and died of exhaustion.
But, really, I can't think of another film that beats these scenes of obsolete airplanes on the ground and in the air. It was released in 1941 and the irony is that every airplane we see, with only three exceptions that I was able to note, were already obsolete and about to be replaced, sometimes not soon enough. The dive bombers are underpowered Vindicators. The aviators called them "wind indicators." The attractively faired torpedo planes were Devastators, many of which were lost to the Japanese. The Grumman biplane in which MacMurray makes his final dive was to be replaced by the F4F Wildcat before the first battles at sea.
The acting is professional all around. (There is an entirely adventitious semi-romance between Alexis Smith and Flynn, creating a semi-rivalry between Flynn and MacMurray -- as if one were needed.)
But the acting hardly matters. The story is interesting and the photography outstanding. Flynn never looked more handsome, MacMurray more ordinary, and Bellamy more put-upon. Unpretentious and enjoyable.
What splashes of color! The navy blue uniforms glittering with gold, the taupe summer dress, the subfusc leather flight jackets and while silk scarves, the haricot green oxygen tubes, the maize life jackets, the cornflower blue skies and puffy bone-white cumulus formations. And the sleek airplanes themselves with their gay, pre-war paint schemes: teal blue tails, Chinese red cowlings, canary yellow wings with diagonal stripes of heliotrope, the dashing squadron insignia of fuchsia and chartreuse, and -- and -- wait. A tragedy. My thesaurus just burst its heart and died of exhaustion.
But, really, I can't think of another film that beats these scenes of obsolete airplanes on the ground and in the air. It was released in 1941 and the irony is that every airplane we see, with only three exceptions that I was able to note, were already obsolete and about to be replaced, sometimes not soon enough. The dive bombers are underpowered Vindicators. The aviators called them "wind indicators." The attractively faired torpedo planes were Devastators, many of which were lost to the Japanese. The Grumman biplane in which MacMurray makes his final dive was to be replaced by the F4F Wildcat before the first battles at sea.
The acting is professional all around. (There is an entirely adventitious semi-romance between Alexis Smith and Flynn, creating a semi-rivalry between Flynn and MacMurray -- as if one were needed.)
But the acting hardly matters. The story is interesting and the photography outstanding. Flynn never looked more handsome, MacMurray more ordinary, and Bellamy more put-upon. Unpretentious and enjoyable.