Hell's Angels (1930)

Howard Hughes was a son of a wealthy inventor of mechanical parts who grew up as a prodigy, skilled in mathematics, mechanics, and aviation, having his first flying lesson at age 14. It was shortly after the passing of his parents while in he was in college that he decided to pack up and move to Los Angeles and try to make it into a business that greatly interested him, the motion pictures. He would be a producer that would take risks in cinema, but it would be the production of the aviation epic Hell's Angels where Hughes would force himself into the role of director, producing a piece about another interest he loved very much. The film took several years and several millions of dollars to make, but he would put his heart and soul into the combination consisting of two of his greatest loves, movies and flying, producing some of the most thrilling moments on celluloid.

Hell's Angels is the story of two British brothers, Roy (James Hall) and Monte (Ben Lyon) Rutledge, and their adventures entering World War I as part of the Royal Flying Corps (RPC). The brothers are very different as Roy is the more upstanding man that cares about honor and love, while Monte is more about living for himself and does things for fun as seen when he enlists in the RFC just to receive a kiss from a pretty girl. The film plays along the lines of two stories, both of which lead to heartbreak. The first is about the love story of Roy and his girlfriend Helen (Jean Harlow.) Helen is a flirtatious platnium blond who really does not love Roy but rather runs around with men for the thrill. This includes Helen even cheating on Roy with his brother Monte. Ultimately Roy discovers the truth which would lead him to leave brokenhearted as a fights in a climactic air battle along with his hesitant brother. The film is filled with great aerial action including a large battle with a zeppelin that ends in a mammoth fireball. Majestic dog fights fill the screen as the brothers battle German forces ending in their crash and capture. The ending is the most touching moment as Roy shoots his own brother to keep him from devolging secret information to the Germans as he dies in Roy's arms, ultimately ending in his own death at the hands of a German firing squad as a wave of British planes begin to make their attack.

Above what is seen on screen the film is filled with background stories that can produce a book. Hughes, a lover of aviation, was inspired by the likes of the Academy Award winning film Wings to make his own epic flying motion picture. First produced as a silent film, along came the advent of sound and the picture was changed to a talkie. This produced a major problem as the original actress that played Helen, Greta Nissen, had too much of a Norwegian accent and was personally replaced by Hughes with an eighteen-year-old actress named Jean Harlow. Hughes overbearing nature on the picture proved too difficult with the original director Marshall Neilan resulting in his resignation and Hughes manning the helm himself as Hughes had a vision for the aerial combat scenes that no one else had. Hughes would hire Broadway director James Whale to direct the talking scenes while Hughes handling the action giving the picture the feeling of two separate films pushed together in one. Whale, then an unknown would later be known for his work in directing Frankenstein.

Jean Harlow was a rather unknown actress who had played only bit roles in a handful of pictures to this point, but Hell's Angels would change her life and give us a look into the world of sex appeal in the pre-code Hollywood. At age 18 Harlow would be the first blond of her type in the movies, similar to that of Marilyn Monroe. He provocative look and speach made her a sex symbol that toed a line that was not set at this point. Her clothing that barely hung off her body and a shot that shows the revealing of her bare back would make men go wild. Her character's openness with flirtatious sexuality would be silenced in the coming years with a censorship code, but at this time it made the teenager a superstar and for a time the new "it girl" in Hollywood.

The film has its issues, namely the talking scenes. In saying that I know it sounds funny, but to discover that the scenes were directed by another person other then Hughes, who painstakingly worked to perfect the flying scenes, it made sense why the film seemed to change gears all of a sudden as we take to the air. It isn't rather the acting, more of it comes from the poor editing as scenes fade in and out of black very often when we watched the segments of the film about the relationships. It was like the editor (or director in charge, either Hughes or Whale) didn't understand that you could simply fade from one scene to the next to show the passage of time, but rather chose to fade to black and back in many times in a row. It was similar to watching a stage play and having the curtain flying up and down like crazy every 30 seconds. It is very frustrating to watch, but that is made up with the action scenes seen later in the film.

The picture literally takes to the skies in unmatched cinema quality when it comes to aerial action. Hughes worked tirelessly to perfect his flying scenes as we watch at times dozens of planes battling in the air. This is in a time long before great special effects and Hughes uses real stunt pilots that fought in WWI to produce realistic recreations of battles in the air. The action and the editing match very well as your heart races with excitement. There would be a battle with a zeppelin that would be staged with models, very well I might add, but that is because zeppelins where not easy to just buy and destroy for the sake of cinema. The screen is filled with thrilling reality as planes swoop, dive, and even crash to recreate early air battles. A handful of pilots would in fact were injured or lose their lives in the production as planes crashed, even into crowds of people. It is quite magnificent to watch as a piece of history is recorded for us to watch in this very film. The realism is amazing because it is in fact real planes doing these actions.

As the American audience would be watching the picture, Hughes creates a villainous front for the German characters that are being portrayed. This depiction is very shocking and real to a world that we live in today. In the scene where the zeppelin is to bomb London we watch as the German captain orders the crew to commit suicide by jumping out of the ship to lighten the load of the airship so that they can run away from the oncoming RFC counterattack. We watch as a dozen or so men are willingly, or even forced to jump out of the ship to their deaths. We even watch the killing of a side character, and pre-war friend of Roy and Monte's, named Karl as he is sent to his unwilling death as a sacrifice for the motherland. An emotional scene to watch even to this day. The battle is capped with an English fighter whose guns have jammed but sacrifices himself by crashing his plane into the zeppelin to bring it down in a smoldering heap.

The film was a financial success, with box office receipts around $8 million, good enough to double the production costs. The acting was seen as poor, but that would not stop the overall success. Harlow although given negative reviews for her acting couldn't be stopped for becoming a star for her appeal. The picture's massive epic air shots would receive a nomination for best cinematography. Hughes would go on to produce many more pictures and one day purchase the small RKO studios, despite not having much interest in the company as his future interest would mainly take him to the world of aviation rather than the motion pictures.

The impact of Hell's Angels may not be well known, but it has surely inspires many filmmakers that come after. The majestic, epic size of the air battles were unparalleled by anyone before or after. Directors such as Stanley Kubrick and George Lucas would cite the film as one of their favorites and it can be clearly seen as the inspiration of how Lucas would edit together his star fighter battles in Star Wars. The film plays to awesome levels when you realize what had to be done to produce this picture. The painstaking work is unimaginable in a world where the scenes would now be created in a computer. Hughes had a vision for this film and it is very interesting to see just a piece of his mind played on screen, for he was one of the more prolific men of the early 20th century.