HELL DIVERS

US, 1931, 109 minutes, Black and white.
Wallace Beery, Clark Gable, Conrad Nagel, Dorothy Jordan, Marjorie Rambeau.
Directed by George W. Hill.

Aviation must have been in the air, so to speak, in the early 1930s in Hollywood. Howard Hughes made Hell’s Angels, there were also films like The Dawn Patrol and Howard Hughes’ Hell’s Angels. The story comes from Frank Wead, a navy aviator during World War One who went to Hollywood in 1929 and wrote a string of films, mainly about aviation until 1957, including They Were Expendable and his last film, Wings of Eagles with John Wayne.

The film is fairly conventional, has some strong aerial shots of pilots in training using cameras instead of guns to indicate how successful they would be in shooting down the enemy. There was also the development of dive-bombing.

Wallace Beery and Clark Gable are companions, often in rivalry as to who is the most successful. Beery, as usual, plays something of a rogue. Gable is the strong heroic type. There are some clashes, a climax where they are stranded on an island, Beery doing the heroics to rescue the injured commander and Gable who has a broken leg. The film ends with some sentiment with the burial at sea of Beery.

Clark Gable was at the beginning of his career, a commanding presence on screen. Beery was to win the Oscar at this time for The Champ. Gable won it three years later for It Happened One Night.

1. A popular film of 1930s? The interest in aviation? The history of World War One and the development of flight? Of aerial combat? The developments in the 1930s?

2. MGM production values, the cast? Black and white photography? The aerial sequences? The musical score?

3. The sophisticated film techniques of the early 1930s? Especially the cameras on the planes, under the planes – and the shot of planes landing…?

4. The popular plot? Expected conventions? The focus on the navy, the navy support in making the film?

5. The navy and the pilots, in training, assessment of their skills? Rivalries? Going into action? In the Atlantic, Panama? The dangers? Cloud, crashes? Rescues? The aircraft carrier and its crew? Officers, decision-making?

6. The introduction to Windy and Steve, the competitiveness in the air? The group watching the filming, the hits and misses? Windy and his being something of a conman, rowdy? The regard from the officers, despite the difficulties? His enjoying playing practical jokes? The joke on Steve, the girlfriend, the letter, his interference? The clash with Steve?

7. Clark Gable as Steve, the hero, his relationships, the letter, the hopes for marriage? His upset at Windy’s intervention?

8. Duke, the other leaders, their hold over the men, loyalties?

9. The range of staff, the jokers, the ordinary enlisted men, the admiral?

10. The rivalry, the clash between Windy and Steve, the flight, the crash, Steve breaking his leg, Duke and his injuries? The decisions to be made, the fog, the officers on the ship, the search?

11. Windy, the heroics, flying the plane, the difficulty in landing, on the aircraft carrier, the crash, Windy’s death?

12. The tributes, Steve and his reassessing Windy? The ceremony, burial at sea?

13. The morale-boosting effect of this kind of navy and aviation film in the early 1930s?