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Howard Hughes' Hell's Angels 11 November 05
Section: article
Categories: Film / dvd-mine
I may never have come to see this unusual film if I hadn’t received it as a gift recently (thanks). The film was written and directed by Howard Hughes and came out in 1930.
Some things stand out:
- The film was done with direct sound (the dialogues were used as recorded during filming as opposed to post-syncing them), which is good and the way all films should be made (they are, after all, made with direct light, even if it is timed and modulated in the printing); Not that it was an esthetic decision on the part of the filmmaker.
- It contains perhaps the most poetic and evocative airborne battle scenes I have ever seen. At first I wondered how they managed some special effects, until I grasped that they were not special effects at all, they were real… "real" dogfights, bombs dropped on depots, and a real zeppelin bursting into flames. It turns out that a few stunt pilots died while filming and at one point the rest started refusing to carry out Hughes’ demands, so he flew a number of scenes himself.
- Posed against the elegant battle scenes, the film also showcases the filmmaker’s amazing lack of insight into human nature. The dialogues and acting were… the only adequate word that comes to mind is wooden. Clearly he needed some padding around what truly interested him, aviation.
- His portrayal of the only significant woman character (played by Jean Harlow, who was great) invested her, certainly inadvertently, with more richness than any other character in the film. But it says far more about his outlook on women than about, again, any intentions on his part. She was portrayed as a deceiving, opportunistic wanton, but was by far the most convincing character in the film. The protagonist of the film believed himself to be courting her and his cuckolding was virtually the main thread of the human narrative, though it was intended to be secondary to cultivating the looming military conflict and its air warfare which was, as mentioned, the main point of making the film. Hughes’ vantage point on women, war, and life is one of a spoiled, fairly bright mogul who was removed from real life—the need to work, have equal relationships, etc.
- Some of the film was in German, spoken by German actors, mostly. The portrayal of the Germans portends a mixture of 1960s U.S. cliches of Nazis and German soldiers, spanning the show Combat →, which starred actor Vic Morrow, to Arte Johnson’s monocled, helmeted German soldier on Rowan and Martin’s Laugh–in →, dragging on the remains of a butt and saying after some scenes: "Fairy interrrrestink, but schtoopid!"
- Title: Howard Hughes' Hell's Angels
- Directed by: Howard Hughes
- Writing credits: Harry Behn, Howard Estabrook, Joseph Moncure March, Marshall Neilan
- Starring: Ben Lyon, James Hall, Jean Harlow, John Darrow, Lucien Prival, Frank Clarke, Roy Wilson, Douglas Gilmore, Jane Winton, Evelyn Hall, William B. Davidson, Wyndham Standing, Lena Melana, Marian Marsh, Carl von Haartman
- Year: 1930
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