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DVD Hell's Angels
Two bright facets light up Hell's Angels, a 1930s aviation melodrama. One is the extraordinary footage re-creating World War I air battles; the other is 18-year-old Jean Harlow. Both are enough to offset the cornball story and stilted dialogue, the latter added late in production, with the advent of motion-picture sound. The movie, almost three years in the making, with a budget of nearly $4 million--very high for its day--was the obsession of eccentric millionaire director Howard Hughes. Apparently, the authenticity of the dogfight scenes was so important to Hughes that he piloted a plane himself, and ended up breaking a few bones in the process. More shocking, it's said that three pilots lost their lives making the movie. The sequence depicting an epic encounter between the British Royal Flying Corps and a German zeppelin is especially stunning, thanks to the eye-popping use of hand tinting. A bombing raid on a German munitions depot is also remarkably convincing.
The movie's other bombshell, Jean Harlow, fairly jumps off the screen as an upper-class floozy who plays fast and loose with the two leading men, RFC pilots Monte and Roy Rutledge (Ben Lyon and James Hall), one a scoundrel and one a saint. Harlow glows in the film--it's immediately obvious why her appearance here put her on the fast track to Hollywood stardom. Beauty, sex appeal, vulnerability, audacity--whatever the intangible something is that makes a movie star, it's clear Harlow had it, even as a teenager. --Laura Mirsky
I choose to keep this brief since there are so many reviews. I do agree that the aviation scenes and the Zeppelin scenes are what make "Hell's Angels" a classic film. It is worth seeing. It was the story between the two brothers and Helen portrayed by the very young Jean Harlow that was remade. Hughes could not use actress Greta Nissen since she had a strong Norwegian accent. It is rather ironic since the actors are supposed to be British and none of them sound anything but American.
Jean Harlow made her first "starring" role in this film and Hughes exploited the teenager's sex appeal to the hilt. She was not yet a Platinum Blonde and she still had her real eyebrows intact. When the film was released, Jean received mostly negative reviews. But so did Ben Lyon and James Hall. Nevertheless, the public couldn't get enough of Jean Harlow who was loaned out from studio to studio while under contract to Hughes' Caddo Company. All he used her for was publicity tours to promote "Hell's Angels" and loan-outs to other studios who paid a big sum for her services while Hughes paid her a paltry sum that was in her contract.
In hindsight, Jean's performance in "Hell's Angels" is quite excellent for an actress who only did extra work and bit parts in Hal Roach Comedies. She is convincing as the carefree girl who has no interest in settling down to a life of marriage. Her scene in colour is a highlight of the film and her exuberance and her youthful sexiness are perfect for her role. It is no problem that no one ever dressed like that during WWI!!!
Her scene telling off James Hall who tells a British officer to take his "hands off my girl" is very well acted. Jean Harlow had nothing to be ashamed of in her first screen role. She is an asset to the film.
The film is dated but very worthwhile; Jean Harlow is part of the reason that it is a film well worth viewing.
Bringd Back The Past!!
Originally saw this film in a major theater during my youthful years and compared that memory with the present viewing of the DVD. Found the DVD restored my memory pleasantly. Although there is no full recall of all details, the salient ones are the unsatisfactory color by today's standards. and the over-dramatic acting of the players--perhaps this is due to the period recently entered from the silent era into the "Vitaphone" era.
Great Aerial Scenes and Jean Harlow Highlight
"Hell's Angels", the first film directed by Howard Hughes, is one of the most remarkable unremarkable films you will likely ever see.
If you have seen "The Aviator", you know a little about the production of this film. Hughes, who suffered from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, was a rich man who moved to Hollywood, ready to conquer the industry. He labored over every frame, spending a lot of his own money and taking a lot of time to make sure every frame was just right. Just as the film was ready to be released, sound was introduced to movies with "The Jazz Singer". Hughes decided that he needed to reshoot the entire film in sound. Adding more money and time to his production schedule. The film was finally released in 1930 and caused a sensation. More on that later.
The story is about two brothers, Monty and Roy, and their German friend, Karl, all of whom are attending Oxford just before World War I begins. A few months earlier, on a trip to Germany, Roy is caught having an affair with the wife of Baron Von Kranz. Challenging him to a duel, the Baron expects to see Roy at sunrise. However, Roy flees back to Oxford. Monty decides to uphold the family values and fight in his place, getting wounded. They return to Oxford, where Monty begins romancing Helen (Harlow). As soon as war is declared, Karl is yanked back to Germany and all three become members of their respective country's air forces. You can probably guess what will happen throughout the remainder of the narrative. We have all seen variations of this narrative a hundred times since.
"Hell's Angels" is remarkable for two reasons. The first are the aerial battles. As documented in Scorcese's film, Hughes was obsessed with making these two scenes realistic, terrifying and memorable. He succeeds. The first involves a Hindenburg airship flying towards London. The RAF receives word of the ship approaching and the brothers fly off to destroy it. These scenes are remarkably realistic. Considering the film was made before 1930, it is difficult to tell which parts of the scenes were shot using real people and which, if any, were shot using special effects. We get the sense that we are actually on the flight deck on an airship as the German officers try to determine where to drop their bombs. The first shot of the airship coming out of a bank of clouds, tinted dark blue for night, will be an image that I remember for a long time.
The second scene involves two squadrons of flyers, one British, the other German, fighting it out in the air. This is the scene Hughes was making during the beginning of "The Aviator". If we are to believe that film, this was shot with real airplanes, actors, and cameras. And it is also amazing. It has a different sort of visual poetry to it, but it is no less effective than the previous scene. The planes flying around, fighting, dropping through clouds ("We need clouds." "There are clouds in Oakland."), are fantastic to watch. Again, both of these scenes are all the more amazing because they were shot before 1930.
The second remarkable thing about "Angels" is that it marked the first starring role for Jean Harlow. Harlow, 19 at the time, would become one of the biggest stars in Hollywood before she died at a young age. Hughes, always looking to provide the audience with the latest in technology, chose to use color tinting throughout the film, a fairly common practice in silent films. Filmmakers used a color to provide the scene with an overall feeling, to enhance the drama or action unfolding on the screen. Night scenes were frequently tinted dark blue. A suspenseful scene might be tinted purple. Hughes goes one step further. He uses early color techniques for one scene featuring Harlow. I believe this is the only color film of Jean Harlow to exist in a motion picture. The scene itself is unremarkable except that we get to see this icon, this future sex symbol, in as close to an approximation of real life as possible. Imagine if we had never seen Marilyn Monroe in color and you begin to get the idea of the importance of this small segment of the film.
Watching the film for the first time seventy-five years after it's initial release, I noticed something in the credits. James Whale, the director of "Frankenstein" and other films, is credited with directing the dialogue scenes in "Angels". This caused a number of things to click into place for me. In "The Aviator", Hughes is portrayed as being obsessed with getting the aerial scenes just right. He needs a twenty-fourth camera. He wants clouds in the background to give the planes a feeling of speed. He wants everything to be perfect. His other passion was creating fast airplanes. Both of these elements would seem to fit together, to make sense. It would be natural for someone like Hughes to be more than a little disinterested in worrying about something like dialogue or story. He left this part of the filmmaking process to Whale.
When I watch a film for the first time, I try to think about the film as it might have been perceived in its original release. This was nigh on impossible for me with "Angels". The three male leads all appear to be in a high school play, attempting bad British accents, speaking bad dialogue. Even the actor playing Karl, the German friend, appears to be "acting" British. They walk stiffly and everything is staged as it would be in a play. This was actually a lot more common in the early days of film, because they simply didn't know how to stage the action in a more interesting way. There are a number of films from this period that have much more engaging acting.
The plot is very predictable. I can't imagine that this story was fresh even in 1929 or 1930. It seems lifted straight out of a parlor drama or from the stage, from a play that may have been popular at the time, but which we have never heard of since. Rightfully so. If you think about the story I have outlined above for a few moments, you will be able to predict all of the turns in the story.
When a filmmaker goes to such great pains to create a part of their film in such vivid detail, you would expect the rest of the project to be of an equal caliber. A good modern example of this would be James Cameron's "Titanic". Cameron spent a lot of time and money recreating the ship and then sinking it. This happens close to two hours into the film. What keeps the audience watching until this point? It is the romance between Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio. Yes, the story is predictable, and we have seen it a million times, but it works. Cameron spent a lot of time on the special effects, but he also devotes a lot of time to the story and characters leading up to the event. If we don't care about the people on the boat, we won't care that the boat is sinking.
Hughes creates two great aerial sequences, which run about 20 minutes. Unfortunately, you have to sit through almost 110 minutes to get to them. And, ultimately, as good as these sequences are, we really aren't that concerned with the outcome, because we don't know or care enough about the people in the planes to care if they crash.
"Hell's Angels" was a huge hit, earning a profit for Hughes and leading him to direct "Scarface" starring Paul Muni. Audiences were no doubt awed by the aerial scenes and less critical of the rest of the story.
Howard Hughes: The Real Aviator is powerful, razor-sharp storytelling, an unsettling documentary built around Hughes's own recollections written during his final years of bizarre reclusiveness. Using newsreel footage, smart visual effects, and interviews with wife Terry Moore, close friend Jack Real, and key aides and executives from Hughes's sundry enterprises, The Real Aviator tells the almost improbable tale of the strapping Texan who transformed, at age 19, his late father's successful Hughes Tool Company into a colossal enterprise for cutting-edge aircraft and Hollywood film production. A daring pilot and driven captain of industry, Hughes built the planes that allowed him to break every speed record imaginable, created Trans-World Airlines (TWA), and moved heaven and... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Howard Hughes DVD Release Date: Released the 16 November 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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A fast-paced, entertaining lark of a film, The Outlaw is known today mostly for the buoyant performance of Jane Russell, whose career was engineered by the film's director, Howard Hughes, otherwise infamous for his reclusive millionaire ways. But more than that, the film boasts a set of finely tuned performances in the retelling of the story of Billy the Kid (Jack Beutel), whose burgeoning friendship with Doc Holliday (Walter Huston) arouses an intense hatred in Sheriff Pat Garrett (Thomas Mitchell, arguably the greatest character actor who ever lived). As Rio, Doc Holliday's girl, Jane Russell creates an irrepressible presence that lends an ample foundation to the story when her affections for Billy cleave his relationship with Doc. There are enough psychosexual rumblings to... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Jack Buetel - Jane Russell - Thomas Mitchell Director(s): Howard Hughes - Howard Hawks DVD Release Date: Released the 29 June 1999 Usually ships in 24 hours
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From Hollywood's legendary Cocoanut Grove to the pioneering conquest of the wild blue yonder, Martin Scorsese's The Aviator celebrates old-school filmmaking at its finest. We say "old school" only because Scorsese's love of golden-age Hollywood is evident in his approach to his subject--Howard Hughes in his prime (played by Leonardo DiCaprio in his)--and especially in his technical mastery of the medium reflecting his love for classical filmmaking of the studio era. Even when he's using state-of-the-art digital trickery for the film's exciting flight scenes (including one of the most spectacular crashes ever filmed), Scorsese's meticulous attention to art direction... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Leonardo DiCaprio - Cate Blanchett - Kate Beckinsale Director(s): Martin Scorsese DVD Release Date: Released the 24 May 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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This big, boisterous adventure is more inspired by than based on Rudyard Kipling's famous poem. Legendary screenwriters Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur have fashioned a rousing Hollywood movie full of high adventure, knockabout comedy, and old-fashioned male bonding. And old-fashioned it is: the trio of British officers and best friends who form the core of the film are a 19th-century three musketeers in India, threatened by the interventions of a woman who means to marry the dashing Ballantine (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.). Blustery commander MacChesney (Victor McLaglen) schemes to keep Ballantine in the army while his second in command, the treasure-hunting Cutter (Cary Grant in a hopelessly mugging comic performance), continues searching for his elusive mother lode, but all their plans are... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Cary Grant - Joan Fontaine Director(s): George Stevens DVD Release Date: Released the 07 December 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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From Hollywood's legendary Cocoanut Grove to the pioneering conquest of the wild blue yonder, Martin Scorsese's The Aviator celebrates old-school filmmaking at its finest. We say "old school" only because Scorsese's love of golden-age Hollywood is evident in his approach to his subject--Howard Hughes in his prime (played by Leonardo DiCaprio in his)--and especially in his technical mastery of the medium reflecting his love for classical filmmaking of the studio era. Even when he's using state-of-the-art digital trickery for the film's exciting flight scenes (including one of the most spectacular crashes ever filmed), Scorsese's meticulous attention to art direction...