L'escadrille des jeunes

I was either 12 or 13 when I saw this movie and it probably had much to do with my becoming a United States Air Force pilot. Shortly after I saw the movie my father and I attended the grand opening of Ellington Field in Houston and I saw a P-38 and fell in love with aviation.

I have seen the movie again in recent years and after twenty-nine years in the Air Force tend to pick the movie apart for the "Hollywood" production which is frequently quite different from the real world. However, it was an outstanding movie for its time and I probably have many fellow aviators that this movie influenced when they were young and impressionable.

Mitchell Leisen was drafted in to do this one after shooting had started when it wasn't coming together under the original director. He did a good job of the flying shots but the clichéd, inconsistent script stops this from being any more than passable.

The movie is also long, unusual for Leisen as he liked fast paced movies, and I guess some of this is due to scenes capturing the feel of the air force at work. However by the time you get back to the court martial scenes at the beginning you have almost forgotten what the trial was about.

I liked Brian Donlevy - thought he was convincing. Bill Holden was just starting out. Ray Milland always reminds me of a second rate Cary Grant, except he managed to do something later in his career that Cary was unable to do - win the Oscar for best actor. There is no development at all for his character in the script. Didn't mind Veronica Lake though she was apparently not a lot of fun to work with in this her first movie.

This movie is also referenced in Leisen's next movie "Hold Back the Dawn" as the movie Leisen is making when the Charles Boyer character comes in to tell his story.

I Wanted Wings has its place in Hollywood history because of winning the Best Special Effects Oscar for 1941. It's story about three men who wanted to become pilots in the Army Air Corps and the women who loved them is a bit dated.

Ray Milland, William Holden, and Wayne Morris are three very different types looking to be pilots. Milland is a well known playboy from the Long Island horsey set, Morris a good natured football jock, and Holden a poor garage mechanic who wants to better himself. It all comes real easy for Milland while the other two have to sweat out under the tutelage of Flight Instructor Brian Donlevy who they keep running into no matter where they go in the Army Air Corps.

The women in their lives are Constance Moore photo journalist doing a cover story for a magazine like Life or Look and sultry nightclub singer Veronica Lake. Holden and she have a past, but she's got her eyes set on Milland's millions.

I Wanted Wings is of course at its best in the air. Director Mitchell Leisen is invading territory that normally belonged to William Wellman, still Leisen does a nice job with material he normally wouldn't be assigned to. I'm guessing Paramount wanted Wellman for director, but he was probably tied up someplace else.

These guys are all a wee bit too noble though, especially Holden who was getting type cast in what he called his 'Smiling Jim' roles. As for Milland, I'm not sure why everyone keeps going out of their way to pull his chestnuts out of the fire.

Veronica Lake got her first real big break it's with here that Leisen's talents shine. This was where the famous peekaboo hairdo with the accompanying come hither glance was invented.

I agree with other reviewers that the film was too long by about 25 minutes. Still I Wanted Wings should please the aviation fans out there.

As a former Air Force pilot, I noticed that none of the pilots wore their wings while in their workaday blouses (as opposed to flight suits or more formal jacket and tie uniforms). That must have been standard just before WW II. The film is hardly a gung-ho recruitment poster. It shows some unconvincing cowardice (from Ray Milland) and some slightly more convincing insecurity (from Wm. Holden). It does have some good shots of training planes doing aerobatics -- and those must have been responsible for the Academy Award for special effects. Holden's emergency landing in a small field is also well done. The film hints at the kinds of things pilots have to learn, but doesn't educate us to the process. The early version of the B-17 did not have a tail-gun, so that design feature permits Veronica Lake to stowaway late in the film. By the way, the base security at March Field must have been really lax! Lake is wonderful as a sinuous singer (voice dubbed) in a glimmering gown. That she turns out to be Holden's ex-ember strains credulity. But this sub-plot is strong, simply because of Lake and Holden, who is given the only three-dimensional character in the film and who deals with his character with restraint. The love plot between Milland and Moore is bland, except for the brief instant when she grants him permission to kiss her. While the film was made in 1941, the pilot class that Holden, Milland, and Wayne Morris (who later became a Navy ace) is 38a -- early 1938. The film, then, is supposed to depict a time-span of a little more than two years, though we are given few signals about when it happens -- other than the elegant late 30s autos -- or how much time the action consumes.

The story begins at a court martial. Jeff (Ray Milland) is in serious trouble and Al (William Holden) appears to speak up for him. Al's story is told in a flashback that lasts the duration of the film. There were three cadets in flight school who are friends. Jeff is a rich but nice guy, Al is a poor gas station attendant and Tom is a happy goofball. The film follows them through flight school, showing their ups and downs. In addition, there is a side story about Al and his short relationship with a real screw-ball, Sally (Veronica Lake). She is, to put it bluntly, unhinged and when he drops her, she vows to destroy him! And, during the rest of the picture she appears periodically to cause chaos (probably what psychotherapists would label a 'Borderline personality').

Aside from making all three cadets too impulsive and stupid at times, this is a rather enjoyable film. I particularly enjoy airplane flicks. Like many of Hollywood's films from 1940-41, it seems as if the movie folks knew US involvement in WWII would begin soon and so they began making movies glorifying the military and, in particular, making military training look wonderful (such as in "Caught in the Draft", "High Flyers" and "Buck Privates").