One of the very few classic World War I adventures, the work of swashbuckling Errol Flynn, the staid, villainous Basil Rathbone and David Niven who transcends from Flynn's light-hearted sidekick to a combative inferior officer light up the skies over enemy territory.
The carefree camaraderie bolstered by excessive drinking in the face of certain doom provides an uplifting theme. I particularly like the songs they sing as they belly up to the bar, most notably, "Hurrah for the Next Man that Dies." The dogfights in the biplanes of that era are so vivid because you can see the pilots' every move, and they can see each other -- the thumbs-up when one of them is shot to pieces and about to plummet to his death.
The film captures the reality of a war that history tends to overlook more and more as time goes on. It should go down as one of the classics of the era.
The carefree camaraderie bolstered by excessive drinking in the face of certain doom provides an uplifting theme. I particularly like the songs they sing as they belly up to the bar, most notably, "Hurrah for the Next Man that Dies." The dogfights in the biplanes of that era are so vivid because you can see the pilots' every move, and they can see each other -- the thumbs-up when one of them is shot to pieces and about to plummet to his death.
The film captures the reality of a war that history tends to overlook more and more as time goes on. It should go down as one of the classics of the era.
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