Howard Hughes' Hell's Angels (1930)

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 Amazon.com

DVD

This is a great old movie I've watched it several times. Good price and good service, would recommend to anyone and will shop again. July 28, 2008

A Great Aeronautical Engineer, but No Movie Director

On the plus side of this movie are the extensive air battles with readily available (11 years after the end of WWI)correct aircraft. The zeplin scenes are also terrific. BUT ...

Other than Jean Harlow, the acting is terrible, the plot line sophomoric, and the continuity terrible. Perhaps because is was assembled from different copies of the film, most of the daylight sequences are in black and white, but a dance segment is in color. The night shots all look like a blue filter was placed over the lens.

This appears to have been a transition film between Silents and Talkies. Dialogue is used in most of it, but scenes have the choppy transitions of a silent film. New scenes are often introduced with a silent movie style introduction in Old English, illumunated text.

I bought "Dawn Patrol" at the same time and there is no comparison between the two. Dawn Patrol features a well written script and excellent actors. "Hell's Angels" serves as an example of what happens when those two essential ingredients are missing. No amount of exciting hardware can overcome that lack. June 9, 2008

What More Can You ask For?

A beautiful woman to die for, airplanes, dog fights and exciting gun play all wrapped into 1 classic pre-censor movie. A classic! This flick makes Top Gun look like the childs play that it is. These pilots, including producer Howard Hughes, actually risked their lives (and sadly 4 lost their life)in the making of this classic. Eat your hearts out Maverick and Iceman. These are the real air studs, not you hacks. April 28, 2008

Hell's Angels is A Classic

Made many years before the age of graphic animations replacing live flying scenes, this movie is an air war enthusiast's prized asset.
Howard Hughes, himself a pilot, spared no expense in getting scores of airplanes built and hired former combat pilots of WWI for the flying shots in this movie. One owes a debt of gratitude to those technicians who painstakingly restored a high quality DVD from brittle old reels of the original movie. April 10, 2008

More historical treasure than good flick

I purchased this movie because I saw some of the action sequences in a documentary. Most of the pilots in the movie were actual WW-I pilots and the planes were period accurate and so rare to see flying. This movie is a true glimpse into the time. The story is typical silent movie converted to "talkie". The elaborate physical acting during a dogfight scene is incredibly funny with sound. I am glad to own it although I doubt I will watch it again anytime soon. February 18, 2008

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