Hell's Angels

Roy and Monte are brothers and both are at Oxford. When the war comes they join the British air service. Roy is serious and honest; Monte is a coward and spends his time with women. Both are drawn to the same woman. Helen is attached to nobody. They fly at the front. A mission comes: a German ammunition dump is to be bombed and volunteers are wanted. The two brothers take off. They are shot down and come down behind the German lines. There they have to make a choice. Howard Hughes directs and produced. Ben Lyon, James Hall and Jean Harlow are in the cast. It is an American production, released in 1930. It began as a silent film; when sound arrived Hughes reshot most of it and replaced the leading actress. Jean Harlow came into the film that way and the part made her known. The production was among the most expensive of its time and ran over several years. The aerial scenes were shot with real aircraft; Hughes assembled a large fleet. There were deaths during the filming; several pilots and a ground crew member were killed. Some passages were shot in colour. The matter it treats is courage; the two brothers carry two versions of it and the film simplifies neither. The ending builds no heroism. Its limit is structure; the story passages are weak, the acting uneven, and the narrative sags between the aerial scenes. Who it is for: viewers who like early Hollywood and films about air war. Who it is not for: it is old, long, and the dramatic passages weak.