Bombardiers en piqué

Fred MacMurray is a Navy flight instructor. Errol Flynn is a Navy doctor who signs up for flight doctor training. Ralph Bellamy is Flynn's gruff superior. These personalities clash but eventually earn each other's respect and join forces. Their big problem: How to prevent blackouts and high altitude sickness in fighter plane pilots.

Outstanding photography and stirring music back up the excellent star performances in this high class Warner Bros. production. The opening sequence contains amazing footage of the fleet in Hawaiian territory (less than a year before Pearl Harbor); the skies are filled with impressive planes and maneuvers throughout the picture, right through to a beautiful closing shot.

Flynn is totally charismatic in a role that's less flamboyant than his usual swashbuckler but no less heroic. Bellamy's lead doctor approaches his job with gravity and complete dedication. MacMurray is brash, demanding, loyal to both his work and his men.

The solid supporting cast includes Regis Toomey in a good role as MacMurray's pilot buddy. Not essential to the plot but adding pizzazz are Alexis Smith as a sort of off-and-on love interest and Allen Jenkins as a corpsman who spends the picture hiding from his wife. Cliff Nazarro also contributes comic relief with his double-talk bit.

Plot and dialog are solid...but this picture's main appeal is that everything in it just looks so good.

Other posters have discussed the supposed 'spy' story behind this film: That Errol Flynn attempted to get it made in Pensacola rather than San Diego because the Nazis wanted to see the layout at Pensacola. They've pointed out that in the studio days, an actor, even one with Flynn's stature, could hardly have dictated such a thing. Also the buildings shown appear to be in San Diego. Finally, the airplanes used in the film were already obsolete in 1941. The Pentagon would hardly have allowed anything the Nazis and Japanese didn't already know about to be presented in the film, (and we probably didn't have any such thing at that point anyway).

And that last point intrigues me. This film allegedly presents the cutting edge of aeronautical medicine. Yet, if that's the case, the Pentagon would surely not have allowed Hollywood to present that, either. If the film had been made after the war, it would be more believable that this represented in some way the efforts of the heroic doctors and flyers to conquer black-out and high altitude sickness. But in 1941, the only thing that could have been presented was old science, speculation or Hollywood hokum, which this is surely a mixture of. That makes the film, which is certainly entertaining, rather meaningless as a semi-documentary on the subject.

On the subject of Hollywood's obsession with comic relief, this is something that mars old movies to modern eyes. I'm sure there are things in our films today that will someday be considered an embarrassment but these moronic 'sidekicks' are about as funny these days as a minstral show. In this film, the constant return to Allen Jenkins and his problems with his wife are a maddening intrusion into the drama of the film. Particularly inexcusable is the interruption of the scene where Regis Toomey is about to be told that he can no longer fly and we seque to Jenkins again, then go back and pick up Toomey's story. Did 'Spig' Wead really write Jenkins' part into the script? I doubt it. (See my review of 'Hell Below' for another example of this type of cinematic butchery.)

My main reason for seeing 'Dive Bomber' was for the cast. Particularly for Errol Flynn in a departure role, or at least in this particular period in his career where he was best known for his heroic roles in swashbucklers. That didn't bother me one bit, there have been plenty of actors in film history that take on atypical roles at least once in their careers and fare extremely well. Have also liked Fred MacMurray and Ralph Bellamy in other things.

While not a must see, 'Dive Bomber' is recommended by me or just about. Not just for the cast, but it also has very impressive aerial sequences and everything with the aircraft fascinates. 'Dive Bomber' is not a perfect film by all means, but anybody wondering as to whether Flynn could do more dramatic roles in more serious films and doubt it should see this. Was not sure initially myself, but it did surprise me and did remind me of his later roles where his acting did mature.

Am going to mention the not so good things first. Do have to agree that the humour is really not great (painful at its worst actually), very corny and forced with nothing being particularly funny. Also thought that for a film like 'Dive Bomber' it was not necessary, likewise with the very contrived subplot it features heavily in. Allen Jenkins did get on my nerves and felt out of place.

The pacing also isn't perfect, with it taking quite a while to get going. It runs on for a little too long perhaps as well.

However, a lot of things are great. It looks good, with some ravishing Technicolor that really shine in the action, the aerial shots absolutely astonish and the sets while simple don't look cheap or too claustrophobic. While still having that feeling in atmosphere. Max Steiner's score is typically stirring and lush, while not descending into melodrama. Michael Curtiz (another interest point, with him having directed two of my favourite films, 'Casablanca' and 'The Adventures of Robin Hood') directs with an assured hand on the most part, floundering only with Jenkins' subplot and to be honest it would have taken a miracle for anybody to make that subplot work.

Excepting Jenkins' subplot (sorry to go on negatively about this but that's how badly done it was and how much it stuck out), the dialogue intrigued and thought provoked. The story was far from perfect, but on the whole it engaged. The aerial action is enough to make the jaw drop and everything with Flynn and MacMurray anchors the film beautifully. Keeping personal life subplots to a minimum (generally) was a wise move, despite it meaning that Alexis Smith is underused. The acting on the whole is very good, with only Jenkins being bad. Flynn is really quite excellent and shows no sign of being taxed. Despite his acting style being very different to Flynn, MacMurray actually wasn't a mismatch and they are entertaining together. Smith does wonders despite being underused, but the best supporting performance comes from suitably stern and perfectly cast Bellamy.

Despite being far from a classic and having some big issues there are more than enough strengths to recommend it. 6/10.

Taken by itself, DIVE BOMBER is a routine tale of the efforts of Navy doctors to find solutions to major issues facing aviators (countering the effect of G-force on pilots, and functioning in a high altitude environment), written by Naval aviator Frank ('Spig') Wead (who would, himself, be the subject of a later film, John Ford's THE WINGS OF EAGLES), photographed in glorious Technicolor, and teaming top WB 'draw' Errol Flynn with two legendary actors, Fred MacMurray and Ralph Bellamy. Filmed at the eve of the war, the film was one of many military-themed pictures Hollywood's studios were producing, to generate public acceptance of an inevitable U.S. involvement.

While the movie was successful when released, the passage of time has dated it, and the issues addressed; as a result, DIVE BOMBER has not retained the luster of Flynn's swashbucklers. But in the seventies, the film took on a new significance, as allegations were made that Flynn had committed treason, working for the Nazis at the time of the shooting.

According to 'secret' documents that an author said were made available to him, Flynn aided two known Nazi agents, helping them perform espionage by demanding DIVE BOMBER be shot 'on location' at Pensacola Naval Air Station. While the spies were arrested and deported, Flynn went unpunished, and his participation 'covered up', for morale reasons. The revelations were published in a Flynn biography, and the actor's already tarnished reputation became the butt of a new round of derision (a thinly-veiled version of Flynn served as the Nazi villain of the 1991 film, THE ROCKETEER).

Many of Flynn's surviving co-stars, and his official biographer, Tony Thomas, came to the long-dead actor's defense, and research into the extensive, now declassified file the FBI kept on the rowdy actor (files were kept on virtually everyone of importance in the entertainment industry) reveal no more than a social involvement with the agents (the pair socialized with many 'movers' in the film industry, and Flynn was a major 'party animal' in the forties). The idea that the actor could have 'demanded' and gotten a location to be used would have been unlikely (the studio carefully budgeted each film, and actors were only rarely involved in the production end). Had the charges been true, no studio would have ever hired Flynn, again (this was a very patriotic period), and Jack Warner would have PAID, if necessary, for Flynn's one-way ticket to Germany!

Despite the lack of any real evidence, there are still people who cling to the belief that Errol Flynn was guilty (he was far from the noble cavalier that many of his early films portrayed him as, and his critics would love to add treason to his long list of sins). DIVE BOMBER has become the cornerstone of one of Hollywood's great mysteries...

As a snapshot of the US military on the eve of Pearl Harbor, this has a poignancy that it didn't have on original release. The "Enterprise" has a starring role, just two years before Midway (and incidentally, notice how SMALL the carriers are: I guess jet fighters needed vastly bigger ships).

And look at the aircraft: innumerable biplanes, and the rest of them already obsolete. No combat (- and, in fact, no bombs, which is odd, tho' i guess in 1941 the idea of Americans actually dropping nasty weapons like bombs was still a controversial notion.) Lots of formation flying: (this is Warners, after all, the home of Busby Berkeley!) Almost every outdoor scene has a flight of real aircraft zooming through it: the effect is sumptuous, and makes even "The Battle of Britain" look very small beer. Much credit to Michael Curtiz and crew for stage-managing all this.

There are no real surprises in the plot, though it moves through the clichés at an agreeable pace; nonetheless, it's an interesting commentary on the days when flying was not a "routine" activity.

But the reason to watch this is the photography. This is a Technicolor show-piece. The aerial footage is downright glamorous, and many of the interior scenes are filled with interest (though interior lighting problems are apparent, particularly in Flynn's make-up).

Plot-wise, the focus wanders back and forth from Flynn to MacMurray, which leaves both characters slightly unfinished. Flynn was obviously very difficult for Americans to write for: this actually sounds like Bogart dialogue. Flynn looks embarrassed and diffident throughout(he's very good though, and his voice is beautiful). Alexis Smith is fun; possibly the only interesting twist in the script is that the women are both unredeemed ratbags: the slush component is, hence, lower than it would be once hostilities commenced. Ralph Bellamy is good, doing the transition from "guy who doesn't get the girl" to "gruff character actor".

Modern viewers will laugh at the chain-smoking doctors (especially the one with the heart problem).

Max Steiner's score doesn't grab me particularly, but there are some nifty musical effects during the "blackout" sequences.