This is one of several bitterly antiwar movies from the early 1930s that occurred in a brief window between a vogue for movies that celebrated WW1 combat, and the need to turn Americans away from pacifist sentiments by later in the 1930s. Aside from "All Quiet on the Western Front," these movies (like the excellent "The Last Flight and "Heroes for Sale") aren't very well-remembered, and probably weren't particularly popular at the time, as they're...well pretty bleak, despite a certain amount of comedy (here supplied by Jack Oakie, who nonetheless shows more dramatic capability that he normally got a chance to demonstrate), manly banter and such. There isn't much room for women in them, and Carole Lombard's one-scene role as "The Beautiful Lady" (really, that's about the extent of her character) indeed strikes the one false, gratuitous note here, though it's hardly her fault.
Anyway, this is a strong little drama with Frederic March as a flyer who's decorated for shooting down so many "Jerries," but doesn't enjoy that, or even less the fact that his co-pilots have so often been killed. Cary Grant offers good support as an initially adversarial fellow flyer whose attitude is more cavalier than March's, but who comes to understand him--and provide a great, thankless service to him at the end. There's a fair amount of aerial footage involving dogfights, but this is really more a psychological study than an action movie.
I'm not sure why this director (the successful stage entrepreneur Stuart Walker) quit that job for producing soon afterward, as the dozen or so films he directed in the early 30s seem well above average as a whole. Then he died of a heart attack at just 51, in 1941. If his screen career hadn't been so brief, he'd surely be regarded ore highly today.
Anyway, this is a strong little drama with Frederic March as a flyer who's decorated for shooting down so many "Jerries," but doesn't enjoy that, or even less the fact that his co-pilots have so often been killed. Cary Grant offers good support as an initially adversarial fellow flyer whose attitude is more cavalier than March's, but who comes to understand him--and provide a great, thankless service to him at the end. There's a fair amount of aerial footage involving dogfights, but this is really more a psychological study than an action movie.
I'm not sure why this director (the successful stage entrepreneur Stuart Walker) quit that job for producing soon afterward, as the dozen or so films he directed in the early 30s seem well above average as a whole. Then he died of a heart attack at just 51, in 1941. If his screen career hadn't been so brief, he'd surely be regarded ore highly today.