User Reviews

The story is based on the service of CPT Lillian Kinkella Keil, USAF, who flew casualty evacuation flights during WWII and Korea. Back in those days servicewomen were not allowed to remain on active duty if they became pregnant and had a child, even if married. So she was discharged from the USAF. She went on to work for Pam Am Airlines although I'm not sure if it was before or after the Korean War.

She became a fixture at the local VFW and American Legion events many times sharing beers with the same men she cared for as a nurse. When she died in 2005, her son called my dad to arrange for a military ceremony at her funeral. The USAF had told the family they do not provide this service anymore to servicemen unless they are retired or on active duty. So it is up to former servicemen like my dad to arrange for and provide the honor guards and firing squads at such funerals.

So my dad called the state director of the VFW for California and advised him of the significance of CPT Keil's service and the USAF's refusal to participate. He was told to standby for a phone call. Several hours later, the USAF called my dad and told him to stand down, that they would handle everything from here on. CPT Keil had a full honor guard, firing squad and bugler to sound taps for her ceremony.

She was truly an angel.

In "Hollywood Canteen", a fictional soldier fell in love with a fictional version of Joan Leslie, a young rising leading lady who still lived at home, with mom. It's nine years later, and not looking a day older, she's starring in one of the rare films about the undeclared, but U.S. involved Korean war, aiding hospital helicopter pilots picking up the wounded. She's in love with the handsome Arthur Franz who gets a knock on the head with a pan when he sneaks up to surprise her.

Reminding audiences only eight years after the end of what was supposed to be the last war that we're fighting for so much when wars are declared, this is a good natured mixture of romance and comedy as Leslie struggles with the realities of war and the real tragedy of war, which she explains is the children as they cannot fight back. Newsreel footage is seen over Leslie's narration, revealing the fear she undergoes when Franz is declared M.I.A.

Sincere performances and a decent, believable script makes this a pleasing look at what women were doing in service to their country. Veteran actress Jeff Donnell plays Leslie's cheery pal, with Forrest Tucker the heroic pilot who gets into a few nail biting scrapes. This isn't much different than air missions for all those films that came out during World War II. This never gets too technical but does teach the viewer a few important facts about military life and how every cog in the wheel is necessary both in times of war and peace.

Although it runs no less than 90 minutes, this is a very disappointing grade "B" movie. Allan Dwan seems to have directed this one in his sleep – and who will blame him? The script is embarrassingly jejune and was obviously conceived on a level of naïve patriotism with flags flying in every line. Admittedly, a plane crash into the sea is not badly done, but any rational viewer will have switched channels long before that event. The acting, alas, is as bad as the script, and the photography as dull as the action. Maybe the 83 minutes version is slightly more entertaining, but I doubt it. Definitely not one of Republic's best movies!

A propaganda piece for the recent, flawed, US involvement in the Korean conflict, this feature struggles to raise itself above raw patriotism and is further hindered by its focus on a romantic attachment which fails to, pardon the cliche, 'take off'. Where the film redeems itself somewhat is in its depiction of some events based on the real-life exploits of one Captain Lillian M Kinkella, the most highly-decorated officer of the 801st Medical Evacuation Squadron sent to Korea. After her mother was abandoned by her father, Lillian and her two siblings were brought up in a convent, where her witnessing of the nuns' administering to the needy led her to seek a career in nursing. Her career-long wartime service, with 175 evacuations in Korea, adding to the 250 she carried out from the D-day landings to Patton's progress through France, made her the ideal technical advisor to this feature. Given the screenplay's propensity to wax lyrical over the efforts and dedication shown by all those who saw active service within, or supported the troops' struggles in pursuing victory in, the Korean conflict, one can clearly detect the heavy influence of both the United States Airforce and Department of Defence upon the feature, as acknowledged within the opening credits. Nevertheless, the paucity of true quality within the script, equally could denote the lack of apparent energy the writer, Alan Le May, could spare for the project, given the fact he was probably working diligently on his novel 'The Searchers', published the following year, which, aside from being turned into a true movie classic by John Ford just three years later, would set Le May's future career path more firmly into literature as opposed to writing screenplays - this would be the penultimate screenplay of his career. Hence, this could explain the lengthy quantities of internal dialogues delivered by the main protagonist, as opposed to more meaningful interactions in the script. Amidst these, horror of horrors, recourse is even given to rhymes which set this reviewer's teeth on edge, such as on the following plea to God to protect one of the casualties - 'His tired face is dark with pain/Lend him your strength till he smiles again'.

The leading role of Lt. Polly Davies was undertaken by Joan Leslie, who, just like the rest of the supporting female cast, had long since enjoyed her spot in the 'celluloid' sunshine. Her parts had dried up since being blacklisted by Jack Warner as a result of her 1946 legal success in releasing herself from her Warner Bros contract. In addition, over recent years, she had also taken the decision to place her career on the back-burner to focus more instead on rearing her children.

Yet, whatever this feature's weaknesses are, her earnest portrayal of the dutiful application and selflessness of these 'Angels Over Korea', as heralded by this feature's alternative film title, constitute the best scenes the movie offers. As her character declares, in what the audience will learn to appreciate more fully in her final decision on where her true heart lies: 'There's nothing more gratifying on earth than being needed and able to do something about it'. The only contradiction to her resolute preparedness being the amusing need to touch up her make-up as the aerial transport is about to splash down in the middle of the sea.

By contrast, some of the weakest scenes of the feature surround the 'love triangle' between our flight nurse, her rescue helicopter pilot fiancé, and the pilot of her air ambulance who decides to contend for her affections. Fortunately, the latter is played by the regular top-billing actor in the B-movies at Republic Pictures, Forrest Tucker, whose screen presence effectively means that his love rival is much more invisible before his helicopter is downed with his disappearance behind enemy lines. Ironically, it is the vacuous Arthur Franz, unconvincingly cast to all intents and purposes as the love interest, who in real-life had the most dramatic wartime service. Whilst serving as a navigator on a B-24 heavy bomber in the Second World War, Franz was shot down over Romania, and incarcerated in a POW camp, from which he daringly escaped. In terms of the supporting cast, many had seen their own career on screen decline with the end of hostilities in 1945, including Richard Crane, who comically plays the worst room-mate any girl holding out for any hope would wish to have show them round their missing partner's quarters.

Shot entirely on Travis Airforce Base in California, any realism this film captures is grounded by the use of stock footage of the Korean conflict, as well as the use of military hardware so key to the story of the Medical Evacuation Squadron - the Douglas C-47 Skytrain.

The director, Allen Dwan, was a helmer of more than considerable experience, having worked on features for the likes of Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, and more than anyone else, Gloria Swanson, for whom he was the director of choice. Noted for cultivating an unadorned style, Dwan certainly felt no need to embellish the story being told here. Yet, perhaps both his and Le May's greatest failing was in not toning down the level of open 'commie-bashing', which points more towards the paranoia mindset of the dangers of communism which afflicted the US at that time. Hence the inclusion of one dialogue focusing on the enemy's use of 'brainwshing' between Polly and her friend and colleague, Lt. Anne Phillips, played by the ever-reliable Jeff Donnell. Even our dewy-eyed heroine cannot hide her unabashed joy at seeing an enemy fighter shot down. Worst of all is the extended scene in which the questioning of a liberated POW is allowed to take place before an open courtroom, including the evacuation nurses, leaving a bitter aftertaste in this reviewer's mouth of how much it smacks of the excesses of McCarthyism. This is despite the fact that the testimony-giver that we the audience get to observe, ludicrously appears to enjoy an equal measure of misfortune and blind unadulterated luck on a par with Catch-22's bomber-pilot Orr, with his recurring recapture by the enemy and survival of at least two execution parties.

Overall, aside from the sequence, where their air ambulance has to be ditched, where Le May's script matches the drama behind the events, there is no question that this feature raises as little interest as its bland title. However, the 1954 NY Times review was more than a little harsh when it declared that the resolute and courageous military flight nurses were deserving of a better tribute than they received here.

Since there is only one comment about this move, I am posting this review from the NY Times from 1954!

It sounds pretty awful, but the Library of Congress is showing it tomorrow for free, and there is a Thai restaurant down the street with free chicken wings, so . . . might see it!

Well, I did see it, and it's not that bad! True, there is a lot of annoyingly mushy romantic stuff, but the film also shows the important and dangerous services this outfit performed. Also, she dumped the guy and stayed on as a flight nurse!

N.Y. TIMES REVIEW 'Flight Nurse' Has Debut at Palace Print Save O. A. G. Published: January 30, 1954

The resolute humanity of military flight nurses and the courage of the Air Force personnel, whose job it is to transport the war wounded and injured in defenseless helicopters and planes to medical stations, are deserving of a better tribute than they receive in Republic's "Flight Nurse," which opened at the Palace yesterday.

In this vapid maundering in the love life of a flight nurse in Korea we see Joan Leslie carry on a catch-as-catch-can romance with a helicopter pilot, Arthur Franz, while Forrest Tucker, an aerial ambulance driver, contends for her affections. Using every cinematic cliché in a script by Alan LeMay that included rhymed streams of consciousness, Allan Dwan, the director, chose to depict truly heroic actions with mediocrity.

Mr. Dwan's concept of a flight nurse is typified in a close-up of Miss Leslie sweetly contemplating the sky while a funereal voice chants her medical credo.

"Flight Nurse," is concocted so that the dominant theme of Grade A, irradiated love obscures the war with its attendant medical devotion and dedication to the relief of suffering.

The film is revealed for what it is when spliced-in authentic footage is occasionally shown. The supporting cast of Jeff Donnell, Ben Cooper and James Holden is adequate, acting as it was directed.

A bill of eight acts of vaudeville accompanies the film.