Hell's Angels

Hughes as director had his limitations, but he was at his best in making possible the great combat and special effects scenes. The Zeppelin scenes are so realistic it is difficult to believe it was all model and special set work. In 1927-1930 there just wasn't available a "junk" Zeppelin for Hughes to buy and shoot down. It would not surprise me to learn that he offered the U.S.Navy or the Zeppelin Co. a good round sum to buy "Los Angeles" (LZ-126) or "Graf Zeppelin" (LZ-127) for that purpose! Hughes' inexperience as a director shows up at its worst in his handling of the cast. Even allowing for the difficulties of "Dawn of Sound" filming, and that HELL'S ANGELS started as a silent, Hughes tolerated some of the worst acting ever seen in a major film. There is some good work, though. Jean Harlow is very smooth and natural, and the actors playing the German officers are satisfactorily sly and evil.

The story? Oh, two brothers are in love with the same girl, who doesn't really give a hoot for either of them. They volunteer for a suicide mission in a captured German bomber, and .... But, see the ending for yourself. Meanwhile, the Germans are trying to bomb London with their Zeppelin, but the Royal Flying Corps in on the job. That's about it.

For true airship buffs, I'll add a word about the designation "L-32" visible in one scene when the "Zeppelin" is over London. In the minds of folks not too knowledgeable about Zeppelin history, there is apt to be confusion about the "L" and "LZ" designations of German airships used in The Great War (WW1) and after. The German Naval Air Service gave their ships an "L" number. The Zeppelin Co. gave its products an "LZ" number, and the two did not correspond. There was a real "L-32" (LZ-74), and a real "L-7" (LZ-32). Both were destroyed during raids over London in 1916. Perhaps Hughes may have had either of these airships in mind for his fictional one. Incidentally, there is no record of the "observation gondola", which figures in the film story, ever having been used over England. It was used to some extent in raids over European cities.

I saw this film (movie) in about 1933 and still remember every scene. Without the use of bad language it conveyed the fear,excitement,and gallantry of the time. The German evil was perhaps overplayed,but it was made just a very few years after the War. The flying scenes were dramatic and at least as effective as any made in recent years.

Is it possible to obtain a copy?if so where.

This film, produced only three years after sound entered the movies, is entertaining and thoughtful. It makes good use of sound effects and has great visual effects as well. The flight scenes are impressive. Hughes flew a plane in this film (but crashed it) and three other pilots were killed during filming. The scenes of dozens of tiny aircraft swarming in the sky are still breathtaking. The plot is standard good-guys/bad-guys but adds some sensitivity to all parties. We have groups fighting a war in the air, and not too happy to be doing it. But they do their jobs, and give their lives for victory. The scene of Germans abandoning their airship is particularly wrenching and affective. Some token love interests and the usual inept comedy characters round out the cast, which all stood up to the task as well as anyone in 1930.

Jean Harlow gets her first billing in this film (she's one of my all time favorites), so it is her breakthrough movie.

Not a keeper, but see it if you can.

My roommates and I saw a few minutes of this many years ago, and we spent weeks poring over TV listings and video rentals to find more of this movie. We were not disappointed. The aerial combat scenes are, quite simply, the most astounding ever. Some scenes show DOZENS of REAL airplanes roiling in a frighteningly tight ball like a cloud of gnats, and barely missing each other. 3 pilots died filming this movie. I'm forever spoiled for the safe choreography, heavy editing, and airplane-free skies of Top Gun... Hell's Angels has real pilots doing really scary stuff. Real planes crashing into real hillsides, not "drifting behind a sand dune and then setting off a gasoline pot."

I now scoff at the computer-generated zeppelin scenes in "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade." Howard Hughes kicked their butts over 70 years earlier.

Some of the movie is melodramatic and dated, but some human scenes are brutally harsh, powerful, and would never get filmed today because they're TOO chilling.

A really stunning movie, which not only holds up, but betters today's air movies.

Brothers Roy (James Hall) and Monte Rutledge (Ben Lyon) enlist in the Royal Flying Corp and end up flying dangerous missions over England and France in the early days of aerial combat. Howard Hugh's film is best remembered for its extensive aerial footage, involving dozens of aircraft including period-correct Royal Aircraft Factory S. E.5s, Fokker D. VIIs, and a 1920s Sikorsky S-29-A mocked up to look like a German Gotha bomber. The flying scenes (real and in miniature) are outstanding with the attack on the Zeppelin over London and the crash of a large bomber standouts. The epic production, during which several planes were destroyed and three pilots/crew lost their lives, was said to be the most expensive ever (although this may have been marketing hyperbole), partly because it was caught in the silent-to-talkie transition period and needed to be extensively reshot before release. The simplistic 'human story-line' about the brothers, one heroic, one cowardly, is much less memorable with a lot of stilted dialogue, artificial-sounding bonhomie, and trite romantic melodrama (involving up-right Roy's pining after Helen (Jean Harlow), a peroxide blond vamp of dubious morals who seems more interested in variety than sobriety). The pre-code film contains some expletives (shocking then, tame now), Harlow wears some clingy and revealing dresses at times, and the scene in which a character is shot in the back is extremely real looking ( for an era when most 'shot people' simply put a hand on their chest and fell over wearing a shocked expression). A must see for fans of both vintage films and of vintage aircraft.