Air Force
Starring: Garfield, Ridgely, YoungStudio: Warner Home Video
MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Format: Black & White, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled
DVD Release: June 5th 2007
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DVD Review
John Garfield, John Ridgely, and Gig Young star in this hard-hitting, realistic story that celebrates America's airborne heroes during WWII. Year: 1943 Director: Howard Hawks Starring: John Garfield, John Ridgely, Gig Young
User Reviews
WW2 Classic! - Rating: 5/5
On their way to Pearl Harbor, a flight of B-17 bombers arrive at the height of the Japanese attack at the start of WW2. After landing they are told to refuel and fly on to the Philippines where they are to fight the Japanese. Many problems ensue but the crew pulls together and takes the fight to the Japanese. This is truly one of the best WW2 movies with lots of action and a relatively unknown cast...stars Harry Carey, Sr, a young John Garfield, and the B-17 "Mary-Ann". The interplay between crew members and the Marines in the Philippines is worth the price of admission alone. A long lost classic finally being released....DO Not miss this one..!!!
Air Force: The "Good" War Becomes a Very Good Movie - Rating: 4/5
By the time AIR FORCE had been released in 1943, the Second World War had been going on for nearly 18 months. No sooner had the first bombs fallen on Pearl Harbor than Hollywood began to crank out war pictures, all of which had the same purpose: to remind Americans that we were the good guys fighting to the death against some vicious and slimy foes. In AIR FORCE, director Howard Hawks showed the same deft touches that marked nearly all his actioners: a sense of tension among men at war, all of whom interact with each other in ways that range from petty squabbling to hard-won male bonding. Hawks shot the entire film with rapidly alternating scenes of conflict that appeared and disappeared from the screen in such visual power that the audience almost certainly did not notice the minor anachronisms and flubs that occasionally occured.
The plot revolves around the crew of a B-17, dubbed the MaryAnn from the day before Pearl Harbor to the first air attack on Tokyo. The crew is a mixture of many of Hollywood's best: Gig Young, John Garfield, Arthur Kennedy, and John Ridgely. They hear of the sneak attack on Hawaii and land their plane at Hickam Field where they see up close and personal the damage wrought. Hawks plays fast and loose with some historical facts. There were no recorded examples of Japanese-American sabotage, but the mere mention of that made for some gripping drama. The crew bicker amongst each other, and John Garfield reprises what was for him his essential screen persona as the misfit who has to learn how to fit his square peg into a round hole. Though they do squabble mightily, it is the hated Japs who pay the price. In scene after scene, Hawks shows legions of Japanese who get machine gunned on both the ground and in the air with such stark realism that the film won an Oscar for Best Editing. The audience hears Harry Carey inquire often about the fate of his flier son at Pearl until the death of that son becomes an off screen symbol for all those who died on December 7th. The concluding battle at Coral Sea is the climax of a film that had been pointing to a final confrontation with an enemy that Hawks subtly demonizes in a way that if filmed today would be deemed as horrendously politically incorrect. At the close, there is a brief onscreen epilogue that affirms that the goal of this Good War could be nothing less than victory over a godless foe. Nothing was said about a goal that sought redeployment to Australia. This vogue of movie war making would soon enough pass away so that repeated viewings of AIR FORCE leave the viewer to wonder how the previous generation could agree to squabble about anything except the reason for the war itself.
AIR FORCE Stands on Its Own - Rating: 5/5
What a great cast including John Garfield, Gig Young, Arthur Kennedy, Harry Carey and George Tobias. Garfield as always is full of a lot of raw energy. Howard Hawks is at home with a group of actors such as this aboard a B-17 straight dab at the start of WWII in the Pacific (I don't wish to give the plot away). James Wong Howe's cinematography is always brilliant and evocative of the desired mood intended for the rationale of the story. This film is full of great dialogue expounding the virtues of those values dearest to all Americans.
A wonderful propaganda film, but not history - Rating: 5/5
This is a wonderful film. It has powerful messages. There are numerous examples of how teamwork acheives something. My favourite is the tale we are told in little scraps about how the kid sister got wounded driving a guy to the air base - so he could fly a fighter and shoot down some Japs.
The film is emotionally very powerful. It is designed to make you hate Japanese people, and to support bombing of enemy cities.
There was a war on - there was a need to get people to support such policies.
Since the official policy was to put Japanese Americans in concentration camps, the film justifies the policy.
Similarly the film portrays the effectiveness of US military equipment such as bomb-sights in a positive way. They were hardly going to portray it as hopeless.
The film is not historically accurate. It would not have been helpful to have produced a historically accurate film. CNN reports about Kosovo in 1998-99 were just as inaccurate for the same reasons.
A Look At the Reason for War - Rating: 3/5
I saw "Air Force" for the first time the other night. Frankly, I had thought I'd seen or at least heard of the better WWII movies that were made in the 40's, 50's, and 60's. I'm not certain that this belongs in the category of "better" WWII movies but, if not, it's on the cusp. It does a great job of telling the story of the outbreak of WWII though they eyes of the crew of the "Mary Ann", a bomber that was in flight to Pearl Harbor on 12/6/41. Needless to say, they come on the scene just as the stuff hits the fan. After a brief stop, they head to Manilla by way of Wake Island. In case you don't know, those were the hot spots for the US at the beginning of WWII. They depart Manilla and discover a fleet of Japanese naval ships. They radio for help and the Battle of Midway ensues. At the end we see the surviving members ready to head off on a bombing mission over Tokyo.
I was impressed with the sense of historical perspective in how the movie was put together. Some of the chronology may have been stretched a wee bit. For example, the Battle of Midway came a few days too late, in my estimation, to have involved a US plane leaving Corregidor. However, I could be wrong. Anyway, the movie was a good recap of the war to that point ("Air Force" was released in 1943). I suppose that most people who saw "Air Force" in a theater pretty much knew most of this but were glad to get a more dramatic look at the events.
The acting was very good with a special nod to Harry Carey (who did, however, look like he should have been pensioned off 20 years earlier). Arthur Kennedy and George Tobias got my attention but the intentional anti-hero was John Garfield. Garfield was his usual cynical self who finally sees the light before the movie ends. (I sure hope THAT didn't spoil any surprise-you could see it coming a mile away). I was sure I caught a brief glimpse of William Hopper and it turned out to be correct. The acting was within the war-time dramatic tone but yet not overly done. The action scenes were good for that era (after all, the director was Howard Hawks) and the script was fairly decent (written by Dudley Nichols). The movie may have been a little long but I'm sure that it probably didn't seem that way in 1943. All in all, "Air Force" came across pretty good but it isn't the likes of "Objective Burma", "Sahara", "Sands of Iwo Jima" or a number of other WWII era movies that seemed to be running on more cylinders.
