God Is My Co-Pilot

Although "God is My Co-Pilot" was a prestige film from Warner Brothers and did well at the box office, it's really a very slight war film. Much of this is because instead of focusing on the real life of Colonel Robert Lee Scott, it often has cliches, such as the fictional character Tokyo Joe taunting the American pilots with dialog like this: "Ok you yankee doodle dandies....come and get us! ". Additionally, the notion of God in this film is very vague and seems mostly there to remind viewers that God love America and hates Japan. It's a shame, as Scott's life was pretty amazing...but here it's all too simplistic and filled with the usual B-movie jingoism. Now this isn't to say it's a bad film...no...but it was one that really could have been a lot better.

God is my Co-Pilot is one of the best War Movies ever made. This movie was not available on Video for a while, and it was after fans have been screaming for it to come out on Video that it was finally released. Dennis Morgan plays Col. Robert Lee Scott, an Army Pilot who was looking for combat duty in World War II. He ends up in China with The Flying Tigers and flies with them on numerous missions. Richard Loo as "Tokyo Joe", a big mouth, over confident Japanese Fighter Pilot who communicates with his enemies over the radio and welcomes any chance to clash with Scott. This movie may not be as accurate as the book but it still a great movie with great combat scenes with P-40s and T-6 Texans as Japanese Zeros.

DENNIS MORGAN is one of those actors under contract to Warner Bros. who seldom got a chance to do anything but lightweight roles and occasionally given a fairly good musical such as the Technicolored MY WILD IRISH ROSE where he played Chauncey Olcott, songwriter.

But GOD IS MY CO-PILOT is a rarity in that he gets to fill most of the screen's running time as Col. Robert Lee Scott, one of the first Americans to join the "Flying Tigers" just before World War II. Scott went on to a distinctive wartime record and only recently died at a ripe old age, a hero of his hometown of Macon, Georgia.

The film is a typical Warner war film--cast with all of their most dependable stock company players--including RAYMOND MASSEY, ALAN HALE, CRAIG STEVENS, newcomer MARK STEVENS, ANDREA KING, DANE CLARK, JOHN RIDGELY and DONALD COOK. But as a film, it falls strictly into the Saturday afternoon adventure mold for kiddies, only occasionally rising to the occasion of being a good biography of the wartime hero.

Despite the rather plum role, Morgan is still a lightweight, leaving the heavier histrionics to Raymond Massey and Alan Hale--but his fans loved him in this, regardless. It's probably the film he's most remembered for during the '40s.

And incidentally, there was no political correctness going on in the '40s as far as America and the Japanese were concerned, for those taking affront at the slurs against "the Japs". That's the way they were regarded then. Even having dishes that bore "Made in Japan" on them, was enough for an American to consider throwing them out. That's how it was--deal with it.

The Flying Tigers roared onto the screen and into the imagination in two fairly good films: The Flying Tigers with John Wayne and God is My Co-Pilot, based upon the real life experiences of Colonel Scott. WWII was nothing like the politically correct war of current vintage. The American people did not love their enemy; they would have used the enemy's sacred writings for wholly sanitary purposes and bragged of the experience. The movie correctly shows this. On the other hand, in the spirit of Greater American Democracy, plenty of Neisi and Chinese actors had jobs as extras smiling at bombs away in the halycon years of the WW II propaganda movie.

The book is still worth reading even today. More than a mere autobiography or piece of US war propaganda, Scott tells of the conflict between Chennault and Stillwell, the destruction of the Flying Tigers, the eclipse of the Chinese Nationalists and the rise of Mao.

The movie has one glaring historical error in the movie: The July 4 1942 raid did not take place. The original AVG refused to fly.

Here is an absolutely incorrect statement - "WWII war movie about the fabled "Flying Tigers" who battled the Japanese over the skies of China as early as 1937, four years before the attack on Pearl Harbor, and amassed a record of air-to-air combat kills against the Japanese air force of something like 40 to 1."

The foregoing is NOT true - the Flying Tigers flew their FIRST combat mission on 20 December 1941 MORE THAN TWO WEEKS AFTER PEARL HARBOR!!! They were disbanded on 4 July 1942 - they were only in combat for about six months. During that time they did establish an astonishing air-to-air kill ratio of somewhere between 29 to 40 to 1 (it is still in dispute). Gen. Chennault had been in China since 1937 working for the Nationalist government as an adviser and trying to develop a Chinese air force, with limited, if any success. Someone made a comment that the original AVG pilots refused to fly the 4 July 1942 mission- I'm sure they did, the unit had been disbanded by that time and most of the pilots had been treated like dirt by the Air Corps general, Bissell by name, who was tasked with trying to get them to stay on in the American army air forces. Read about that debacle sometime. By the way, Scott never flew with the Flying Tigers, he was brought in as the unit commander after it was integrated into the Army Air Forces, a few, but by no means all, of the original Tigers transferred over and continued to fight in China. Quite a few others went back to the States and re-joined their former services. Boyington went back to the Marine Corps, quite a few others into the Air Corps and served in Europe.

The movie takes quite a few, in fact it takes a whole lot of,liberties with Scott's book, but the general idea is there as is the wonderful lack of "political correctness". This country knew how to fight a war back then and how to let it's military people "close with, engage and destroy" our enemies and they were allowed to refer to them as they saw fit. Krauts, Japs. Wops whatever, they were the bad guys. Let me assure you when someone is actively engaged in trying to kill you, you really don't care about hurting their feelings. For me VC & NVA will always be "gooks" and if that offends someone - well all I can say is "Tough! deal with it"! God help the Soldier or Marine today who calls an Islamic terrorist a "raghead" in front of some prissy journalist. These days - the poor S.O.B. would be court martialed and in the brig before he knew what hit him. Ah, for the good old days. This movie will take you back to them and remind you of a time when this country actually stood for something and had pride in itself.