User Reviews

I must admit I watched this film because of Veronica Lake and I was not disappointed. This being her first big role , she really holds her own with big stars William Holden, Ray Milland and easily outshines Constance Moore. It is proof to me that given the right role and direction, Veronica Lake had the acting talent. As it is, this film is very long and has some dull spots along the storyline, but it makes up for them when Veronica Lake's character appears. Lake and Holden have good chemistry, look good together and it would have been even better if this film was a little shorter and if the script had more focus on Holden and Lake. The story for the most part follows the training and personal lives of three recruits in the Army Air Corps, Ray Milland, William Holden, and Wayne Morris and was made as a salute to the Army Air Corps and an inspiration to those interested in joining. It is easy to see why this film was a hit with the young male audiences of 1941 and this film still adequately holds interest for anyone keen on WW II aviation and those interested in Veronica Lake's early stardom.

roll up your flaps, will ya? Released in 1941, just before Pearl Harbor, this training camp film provides what is known in the study of attitude change as "inoculation." You get a little shot of it in the media so that when the real thing comes along you're prepared for it. Jenner found out it works for cow pox, so why not war?

Ray Milland, Wayne Morris, and William Holden, all of whom want wings, enter the Army Air Corps base at Randolph Field to begin primary flight training under the tutelage of barrel-chested Brian Donlevy. As an instructor, Donlevy is -- how you say? -- stern but fair. He whines his annoyance from the rear seat of the North American T-6 Texans, the popular trainer of the time. You already know what the airplanes look like if you've seen "Tora Tora Tora", in which they masqueraded as Japanese Zeros.

As trainees, Milland is cocky, Holden nervous, and Morris neither here nor there, his primary trait being his clumsiness and stupidity. Curiously enough, Morris was to become a Navy pilot during the war with seven Japanese aircraft to his credit, a recipient of four Distinguished Flying Crosses and two Air Medals. The girls were swooning over Ray Milland in the 40s. Holden is so boyish as to be unrecognizable but then he was only nine years old at the time.

The movie makes no pretense at realism. The activity level in the barracks and mess hall resembles that of a Cub Scout summer camp, all rambunctiousness, noise, and grabass. In a movie like this, girls are called for to prove that the men are heterosexual, and they appear in due course: Constance Moore for Milland and tiny Veronica Lake (née Constance Ockleman) as an infliction, more pernicious than anemia. Wayne Morris doesn't need a mate because, as it turns out, he pollinates.

A good deal of tension is on display towards the end and there are some nice flight scenes; even the simulated shots using back projection are attractive and exciting, at least as good as those in a big budget film like "A Yank in the RAF."

But in essence it's a training camp film whose target is the civilian population. They need to know that war is coming and that men will join the armed forces. They need to know that you don't have to be a pilot, or even an officer, to acquit yourself bravely although, to be sure, it's better to be an officer than an enlisted man, as I know all too well. There is a place for women in the war too, not women like Veronica Lake, shifty and lying, but women like Constance Moore, stalwart, honest, and resolute. Why, Moore even has a job!

...whose only desire is learning to fly.Like some other Leisen movies of the era ("to each is own" " hold back the dawn") it is a very very long flashback framed by short scenes of a trial,the verdict of which we learn at the end ;it's not on a par with the two movies I mention above ;Veronica Lake is given a particularly thankless part and all that concerns her character is not really plausible:she is able to enter a military base effortlessly and even to get into the cabin of her husband 's plane ;Besides ,she becomes a murderess more because the script writers want to justify her death-not a spoiler:we learn it in the first minutes-than because of her motives (we hardly know her victim:a phone call and that's it).

Things go better when Leisen depicts the three musketeers's camaraderie and enthusiasm,and their endearing relationship with their instructor,their hopes ,and their fear of being part of the washed out third .Acting is good,particularly Brian Donlevy as the instructor;on the other hand ,although Ray Milland's talent cannot be denied ,his character is not that nice and he redeems himself in extremis during his trial.They have moments of depression ,of self-doubting and of self-denial.A mediocre flick such as eighties "top gun" found a lot of its inspiration here.

It's not bad or anything like that, but it's not as good as I expected it would be. It's really just mediocre at best. The story follows three Army Air Corps recruits; playboy Jeff Young (Ray Milland), mechanic Al Ludlow (William Holden), and former Notre Dame football star Tom Cassidy (Wayne Rogers). It follows their basic training, to their commission as officers, to goofing around, to an uninteresting love story. The love story in question involves Jeff, Al, journalist Carolyn Bartlett (Constance Moore), and nightclub singer Sally Vaughn (Veronica Lake). Well almost as soon as they meet them life just starts to fall apart for all 4, Cassidy crashes, Al gets kicked out and marries Sally, Al gets back into the Air Corps, Sally gets in trouble with the law and becomes a stowaway, the plane that she hides on crashes, and she ends up dead. It's almost kind of ridiculous. In all honesty, I don't remember what exactly I expected this movie would be like before I watched it, but I did expect it to be more interesting than what I got. It's kind of like Alaska Highway in that it could have been more than what it was. But it's better than that movie for a few reasons. First of all, this is more interesting. Secondly, the acting is actually pretty good so it has that appeal. That being said I don't really recommend it all that much because it's only average and at 2 hours and 15 minutes it's long.

.....so a question must be asked: is there any reason why I WANTED WINGS was never issued on VHS videocassette, laserdisc, DVD, or Blu-Ray? I saw it on American Movie Classics in the early 1990s, and it has turned up on Turner Classic Movies. I recently saw it on YouTube, so here goes my review. I WANTED WINGS opens up with a simulated bombing raid over Los Angeles in spectacular fashion by a squadron of Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses; they drop flares to simulate bomb droppings, and they are going to be intercepted by pursuit squadrons of Curtiss P-40 Hawk fighter planes. The exercise is a resounding success, but one of the B-17s crashes in the desert east of Los Angeles, and there's a stowaway, a dead blonde woman! How'd she get inside the plane, anyway? There is a court-martial underway, and a flyboy named Jefferson Young III is in big trouble. The rest of this movie is in flashback. Three cadets show up one day at Randolph Field, Texas. There is the aforementioned Jefferson Young III, a wealthy playboy from Long Island; the second is football quarterback and unrepentant goofball Tom Cassidy (Wayne Morris); and the third is automotive mechanic Al Ludlow (William Holden) who's trying to better himself after some chickie babe got up in his face and told him that he was always going to be a grease monkey while she was going to be doing great things and there was no room for him in her future, so that's why he decided to join the Army Air Corps. Their flight instructor is Captain Allan Mercer (played with grumpy zeal by Brian Donlevy), who teaches them to aviate with finesse and grace. Jefferson, Tom and Al do their aviating in North American AT-6 Texans, and one night they pay a visit to a nightclub in beautiful downtown San Antonio, and Jefferson goes into a tailspin over that beautiful blonde chanteuse Sally Vaughn (Veronica Lake in a role that could not be played by any other actress) who sings "Born To Love"; trouble is, Jefferson is going out with Carolyn Bartlett (Constance Moore), a lovely magazine photographer for a metropolitan periodical. On a training mission at another airfield, fellow flyboy Jimmy Masters crashes and burns while trying to avoid airborne goofball Tom Cassidy and while Al Ludlow saves Jimmy's life, Jefferson just stands there with his thumb up his nose. Deeply ashamed, Jefferson gets drunk and hooks up with Sally. Al catches up with Jefferson and manages to get him back to the base while telling Sally to lay off, and forget getting her bear paws on his millions. She had been seeing the playboy flyboy with dollar signs in her eyes. Jefferson and Carolyn get themselves engaged, and the three pals get in some hedge hopping, as in they fly at very low altitudes, and Tom Cassidy clips a couple of trees. He dies in the crash, and as Al was in charge he gets kicked out of the cadets. Then Sally shows up and says she's in trouble, which is a polite way of claiming that she's carrying Jefferson's baby. The playboy admits to Carolyn that he'd been seeing Sally on the down low because Sally was going to destroy his reputation. Carolyn says goodbye, and Al makes an honest woman of Sally; the ace mechanic is still in love with her after all. She doesn't feel the same way; matter of fact, she lied about being pregnant, and he admits he'd known all along. Sally leaves him again, and the next time us viewers see Al Ludlow he is an enlisted crew chief on one of the B-17s tasked with participating in the simulated bombing run over Los Angeles. His job is to load the flares so that they can be dropped. So when Captain Mercer finds out that Al Ludlow is serving on active duty as a corporal, he decides to set the wheels in motion of reinstating Ludlow as a cadet. Then Sally shows up at the hangar begging for Al's help; it turns out she shot and killed a gangster who was managing her singing career. It begs the question: how did Sally Vaughn, a civilian, get onto a flightline at an Army Air Corps base? Anyhow, Sally figures Al owes her big time, being the amoral woman that she is, so Al hides her in the back of the B-17 until such time as the heat is off. She sneaks out of the aircraft but just before leaving the hangar a group of Air Corps officers venture inside, so Sally has no choice but to hide inside a B-17 Flying Fortress. Unfortunately, the very same p B-17 gets readied for takeoff before Sally can get away, so she's in for an uncomfortable ride. Jefferson is at the controls, of course. When the exercise is finished, Captain Mercer orders Corporal Ludlow to drop an emergency flare. Ludlow does, and finds Sally Vaughn back on board. There's an argument, a flare goes off by accident, Captain Mercer falls out of the plane, Ludlow slips on his own parachute, jumps out, and rescues Mercer; they both parachute safely. Jefferson Young III manages to land the B-17 safely to pick up Allan Mercer and Al Ludlow, and has to take off as Captain Mercer is severely injured to the point that if he doesn't get to the nearest hospital he will die. Jefferson guns the B-17s engines and gets the bomber plane airborne, but just when the B-17 is about to leave the ground, its left wing clips a rock formation and it crashes, killing Sally Vaughn. Flash forward to the court-martial. Jefferson Young III is cleared of all charges, and Al Ludlow is back as cadet. He takes off with Captain Allan Mercer, Lieutenant Jefferson Young III, and Carolyn Bartlett looking on fondly. I WANTED WINGS racked up a Best Special Effects Oscar for the visual effects by Gordon Jennings and Farciot Edouart, and sound effects by Louis Mesenkop. There are Hollywood histrionics to be sure, but this movie was filmed on location at Randolph Field (later Randolph AFB), Kelly Field (later Kelly AFB), and March Field (later March AFB and March Air Reserve Base). And there are some cute scenes to be had. There is one of Cadet Tom Cassidy at the controls of his AT-6 Texan with Captain Mercer in the backseat. Cassidy is sitting on his ass, and Captain Mercer grumps, "Cadet Cassidy! Are we taking the day off?" Cassidy guns the engine, and takes off. There's another scene of a row of Texans gearing off for takeoff from Kelly Field, and this is an aerial shot by Elmer Dyer. Even though the Second World War started in September, 1939, the United States was sitting it out as this was seen as strictly an European affair. But there was something in the wind and it was only a matter of time before the USA was drawn in. Hollywood must have been prophetic, because several military movies arrived on the silver screen around the same time: FLIGHT COMMAND (1940), DIVE BOMBER (1941), PARACHUTE BATTALION (1941), and INTERNATIONAL SQUADRON (1941). Was American audiences being prepped for the inevitable entry of America's entry into World War II? If it hadn't been for the attack on Pearl Harbor, would we have still sat out the war? I think not. I WANTED WINGS is rather lengthy, but it's worth viewing. It's on YouTube. Have a look, and see William Holden at the start of a successful acting career.