Hell's Angels (1930)

Hell's Angels (Howard Hughes, James Whale, 1930) You watch Howard Hughes' production of Hell's Angels and you're struck by the almost multi-media aspect to it all. I like film's that employ different ways to tell a story—isn't that what the current deluge of CGI films is, really?—but Hell's Angels veers from format to format.

It wasn't intentional. Hell's Angels began production—actual shooting—on October 31, 1927 and premiered on May 27th, 1930. In that time, directors were fired (Marshall Nielan),hired (James Whale was brought in to re-do whole sequences already shot, but this time in sound, making it his film directorial debut), the deaths of three stunt-pilots and a mechanic during the aerial sequences, and a considerable amount of footage staged and shot by producer Hughes himself, who flew overhead and radioed directions to the pilots—Hughes even performed a stunt his pilots considered too dangerous and, as they predicted, he ended up crashing while performing the stunt, fracturing his skull and requiring plastic surgery.

And...during the production of Hell's Angels, The Movies changed. Hughes, not wanting to be caught putting out an inferior product that was "behind the times" began to re-shoot sequences already filmed, so the film goes from silent to silent-tinted, to sound (the Whale sequences) and even to Technicolor—if 3-D was around, I'm sure Hughes would have done that, too. Plus, Hughes tinkered excessively in the editing room, re-cutting sequences to get the maximum jolt out of his footage and adding sound effects to silent sequences, further delaying its release. Then, because he was taking so much time, Darryl F. Zanuck had the window to produce a competing WWI flying film, The Dawn Patrol, directed by Howard Hawks—despite Hughes' attempt to sabotage the production by buying up all the vintage aircraft he could to stop the rival film, and, failing that, suing the production company for plagiarism. The strategy didn't work—not only was The Dawn Patrol released first and Hughes lost his lawsuit, but The Dawn Patrol won an Academy Award for best ORIGINAL screenplay.

There's a good reason for that. The story is slight, about two British brothers, the Rutledges—Roy (James Hall) and Monte (Ben Lyon), as different as Cain and Abel (which might have been the point).  Roy is a straight arrow, the "good" son of the Rutledge siblings. Monte, on the other—groping—hand is a bit of a lout, an incurable flirt and womanizer, he doesn't have much of a moral core, making him a good candidate for politics. On vacation in Europe from Oxford, Monte gets mixed up with the wife of Col. Baron von Kranz (Lucien Prival), who challenges the young upstart to a duel. Monte, never one to meet a challenge head-on, skips off back to Oxford, leaving Roy to take his place in a duel at dawn. Roy is wounded in the arm and returns to Oxford, where Monte is unrepentant, still living a life of boozing and hi-jinks and low-lifery. Why, even the thought of meeting a nice girl turns his stomach, as he excuses himself when Roy takes him to meet Helen.

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Roy has fallen in love with Helen (Jean Harlow), a beautiful but slightly flighty girl, who is quite forward and, frankly, bowls him over. He is completely besotted, but, returning to campus, he meets Monte and their German drinking buddy, Karl (John Darrow) when they learn that Germany has declared war on France, ironic as Karl had earlier scoffed that the two nations would ever go to war. Oh, the naivete of students. Later, Karl is conscripted into the German Army. England becomes embroiled, and Roy enlists in the Royal Flying Corps. Helen is thrilled; Monte calls him a fool. But, Monte gets caught up in mob-fever and foolishly enlists on a dare...and the promise of a kiss from a girl helping recruitment.

Monte finally meets Roy's Helen at "Lady Randolph's Charity Ball"—and if one isn't already disoriented by the switching from silent film to sound and monochrome to tinted, then the Ball sequence must be a head-spinner. Filmed in Multicolor by printed in Technicolor, it is the only one presented in full-color—save for the tinted silent sequences in the film. Plus—as the film was made in the scandalous "pre-Code" era, Helen's dress may cause some raised eyebrows as it's completely backless and shows a lot of decolletage from all angles. It's probably why, as one can see from the various posters promoting the film, that Harlow is prominently featured, despite the fact that she may be only on-screen for all of 20 minutes.

For the sound sequences, the originally filmed, heavily accented Norwegian actress
Greta Nissen was bought off and replaced by 18 year old Jean Harlow in her first film
and in the only color sequences in her entire, short film career.

The Ball proves fateful, as sparks fly as soon as Helen and Monte meet, with Roy—who may be a straight arrow but is also decidedly not the most observant chap. Maybe it's all that color. But, while Roy is distracted by the host's demands, Monte gets to dance with Helen and the two get very close...to the point when Roy and Helen sneak off for a private chat, she confesses that she's thinking of Monte...and the stupid sap is actually pleased about it, thinking that it might cement their relationship and make them closer. Nothing could be further from the truth. 

While Roy is being escorted around and introduced to the hoi-polloi, Helen gets bored and asks Monte to drive her home. Monte—being a no-good heel—is only too happy to volunteer AND go up to Helen's apartment for a night-cap or be quite eager when Helen excuses herself with one of the most famous lines in Hollywood: "Would you be shocked if I put on something more comfortable?" The robe she slips into may be more comfortable, but it has decidedly more material than what she was dressed in for the ball. Nevertheless, Monte is seduced—hey, he signed up for the RFC for less—and he spends the night, immediately regretting it the next morning. Helen and he have a fight when she tells him that she could never love someone as boring as Roy and she kicks him out. He slinks back to his post, waking Roy, telling him that he went to a bar after dropping off Helen and warning him about her, telling him "women are all the same!" Roy won't have any of it and slunks back to sleep, leaving Monte to contemplate just how low he can go by betraying his own brother. But, one begins to wonder where the film-makers' sympathies lie—with the louse Monte or the easily duped Roy?

What follows is the first action set-piece of the movie, as a German dirigible moves through cloudy skies on a planned bombing run to hit London. On board we find the Rutledge's friend Karl, who is given the assignment of being lowered beneath the cloaking cloud cover in a sky basket to find the target for the mission—Trafalgar Square. Karl, being an Oxford student has a change of heart and radios the ship to drop its munitions in a lake, exploding harmlessly—if spectacularly. The ship starts heading back to Germany under cloud-cover, while Karl is being winched back to the air-ship. What they don't count on, though, is three biplanes coming after them, in one of which is Roy and Monte.

The model work of the sequence is amazing, especially for the era and the blue-tinted nighttime scenes have a spooky glow to them. The shots on the planes are all studio shots, but they are well-managed and cut together seamlessly with the model-work.

As the German airship commander realizes that they are being pursued, he orders the engines at full-speed, but it's not enough to out-pace the fighter-planes. When he's told he needs to drop weight to increase the air-speed, the first thing he thinks of is the spy-basket with Karl still inside. Then, even more horrific, ballast is dropped as well as many volunteers of the lower ranks who jump to their deaths for "the Kaiser and the fatherland."

During the battle, two of the aircraft are shot down, including the one containing Roy and Monte, Roy managing to bank the bi-plane to an inelegant landing. They can only watch from the ground as the last bi-plane, its guns jammed, rams into the dirigible making it explode in the sky and crashing to the ground, narrowly avoiding the Rutledge brothers. 

Whew! Time for a 10 minute intermission.

Roy finds Helen working a bar and being very friendly with a supercilious Captain. The two insult each other and Helen upbraids Roy for making fun of her friend. Back at headquarters, Monte is feigning illness to get out of duty and one of the man substituting for him has been killed—"Somebody always gets it on the night patrol." But, Monte is sneered at for being a coward and he's given a speech—the longest of the movie—which Lyon delivers with a little too much Whalesian melodrama: "I'm not yellow! I can see things as they are, that's all. And I'm sick of this rotten business. Fools! Why do you let them kid you like this? What are you fighting for? Patriotism? Duty? Are you mad? Can't you see they're just words? Words caused by politicians and profiteers to convince you into fighting for them! What's a word compared with life? The only life you've got! I'll give 'em a word. Murder! That's what this dirty, rotten, politician war is! Murder! You know it as well as I do. Yellow, am I? You're the ones that are yellow! I've got guts to say what I think! You're afraid to say it! So afraid to be called yellow, you'll kill first! You fools! You poor, stupid fools!" 

Needless to say, no one is very impressed, especially Monte's commander. But good old Roy has a way around that—he volunteers himself and Monte for a suicide mission to cross enemy lines and destroy a munitions depot in advance of an assault by land forces. Thoughtful. But, Roy worries that he'll never see Helen again, so he goes to the bar to say good-bye, only to find her later at a speakeasy canoodling with that effete Captain from earlier. They get into a fight and Helen finally tells Roy that she never had any fun with him "and his high-minded ideals" and that the sight of him makes her sick. Devastated, Roy is led away by Monte who tells him to "don't take it so hard. Never love a woman, just make love TO her." It's only hours before their mission take-off at 3 am and the two get drunk before setting out.

That mission is the highlight of the movie—a spectacularly filmed bombing run followed by an aerial dogfight filmed (except for insert shots of firing guns and damage) entirely in the air—no rear-projection screens—and the many aircraft dotting the frame like gnats. Whether the munitions explosions are real-size and large models, it's incredible action filmed mostly from the air, debris and smoke flying up to the camera lens.

Lasting some 20 minutes, t's a technical marvel of a sequence between the positioning of the planes high above spectacular clouds to the explosions done on the ground. Very impressive—and scary!—are the in-cabin views of pilots shot during the battle as they wheel out of control and fall away from the action above. As it's Pre-Code, there are scenes of pilots in their burning cabins that are horrific, and the language is surprisingly rough and wouldn't have passed censors in films 10, 20, even 30 years later (it would end up with a PG rating today.

But, what lingers is the nihilistic, decadent pall that runs throughout the film (except for an elaborate last shot that has the British overtaking a German bunker in triumph—because, after all, you gotta end on a high note). Bad guys get away with murder, women can't be trusted, the virtuous are taken advantage of—more than one time Roy takes a bullet for Monte—and heroism and patriotism, they really are just words in Hell's Angels. There is no glamour in the sacrificing of lives.

War really is Hell in Hell's Angels.

A shot from Martin Scorsese's The Aviator showing Howard Hughes 

(Leonardo DiCaprio) endlessly watching Hell's Angels.

* Stanley Kubrick listed Hell's Angels as one of his favorite films in 1962.  One can see that film's influence in the opening duel of Barry Lyndon.