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Tuesday, August 15, 2023

AIR FORCE (1943)

Howard Hawks’ paradigmatic template for many a WWII ‘vessel’ as fighting microcosm film; be it boat, truck convoy or, as here, B-17 Bomber.  Still looking great, even when F/X model planes betray themselves.  (Not to worry, most of the special effects hold up pretty well, especially a final battle at sea that got George Amy his Editing Oscar®.)  Here, the motley crew you always find in these films holds a cynical Pole, a Manhattan Jew, ‘the kid,’ a ladies’ man, the old vet, a flying legend’s son, and our calmly bland pilot-leader.  The plane’s on a training run (sans ammo) flying from San Fran to Hawaii (and here’s the brilliant/apparently fact-based gimmick) leaving early Dec. 6th and finding itself in the air without a plan when Pearl Harbor is attacked.  The date cleverly hidden till the third reel.  The rest of the story a race that hops from one threatened landing strip on some doomed island (Wake; Manila) already under siege to the next.  Scripter Dudley Nichols tended to overwrite, but between Hawks’ on-set dialogue editing and his bringing in William Faulkner to redo a pivotal death scene, every moment lands with the faultless ensemble cast.  (Only John Garfield truly a name-above-the-title star.)  Hawks also reuniting after a decade with cinematographer James Wong Howe who does wonders realistically lighting inside the flying fortress (the film much darker than you may recall), and in a stunning bit of lensing legerdemain, pulling victory from the jaws of defeat when his generator died hours before a scheduled landing sequence and left him to improvise something that turned out even better using little but runway flares and smoke pots.  Everything clicks on this one: action, gags, camaraderie, uplift & strong emotion, as even producer Hal Wallis, no fan of Hawks’ independent streak when he worked off the studio lot, had to admit.*

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  *Hawks’ previous film with Wallis, SERGEANT YORK/’41, far more acclaimed and even more financially successful at the time, now seems the lesser achievement.  Certainly, AIR FORCE feels more ‘all of a piece.’  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2008/05/sergeant-york-1941.html

1 comment:

Frank said...

Your review is spot-on, the ensemble work is quite good, and the camerawork is often stunning - the occasional model shot can be forgiven with so much footage of real planes onscreen. The sea battle at the end is quite well done too. I was particularly impressed by the filmmakers' ability to procure enough examples of the very early B-17B/C/D models with their distinctively different "shark fin" tail - a small group of these were flown to Pearl Harbor on Dec. 6 and this attention to detail was impressive. Less than 100 of this design was built and by mid-war when this was filmed it must have been quite challenging to round up such planes.