L'escadrille de l'enfer

This is a rather run-of-the-mill War movie on board an American flat top in the Pacific against the Japs. Definitely not in the class of "A wing and a prayer" or "Tora, Tora, Tora" and, without much background footage, even not up to the mediocre Midway. Education under fire with an as always impressing Sterling Hayden, not much else. Definitely a B-Movie under war movies issued during this area. Consumer commodity stuff not, if you want action, look at the above mentioned movies, if you want it along with history, choose Victory at Sea. Five out of Ten at best for the dogfight at the very end. Actually difficult to crunch out ten lines for this, isn't it.

I am into WW2 aircraft carriers and the Pacific War and I find this film to be a good one for its time. The editing is great and there is only a couple of war film segments that appear twice. Unlike Midway, they don't use modern carrier shots and even through it is not completely tied to a battle or campaign, every thing gets explained(In Midway, they didn't show the fact that the USS Yorktown CV5 sinks, or at least is supposed to sink). Over all, I'll give this film 3 1/2 stars out of five.

The army and the air force had their go at this plot, so I suppose it was bound to be the navy's turn. Richard Carlson in the man expected to take over the squadron of fliers when their boss gets incapacitated, but instead of the mild-mannered "Joe", they get the hard as nails "Collier" (Sterling Hayden). He immediately sets the cat amongst the pigeons by grounding one of their popular but reckless number and by proceeding to rule the team with a rod of iron. Naturally, this earns him the enmity of his command but with their carrier about to head into danger against the heavily armed Japanese Imperial Fleet, we all know that discipline is going to be key (and that there is precisely no jeopardy at all with the rest of the plot!). Carlsen tries a little here, but Hayden is about as wooden as the deck of the USS Princeton upon which much of this was filmed. In the end, it's really all about some impressive aerial photography of training sessions and dogfights that is fairly clearly sourced from archive. It's feel-good wartime fayre but its mediocrity isn't much to write home about.

Flat Top is a run of the mill war film with an old plot device about a conflict between the group captain and the executive officer on how to command. But considering this came from Monogram Pictures which was transitioning to Allied Artists, for what product normally came from that studio this could have been Gone With The Wind.

Monogram even sprung for color and utilized some real combat footage from the Battle of Leyte Gulf. The stars are Sterling Hayden and Richard Carlson as the skipper and his number 2. It's the usual story, the tough new skipper and the executive officer who is loved by the men under him. Both these guys and the cast beneath fill their roles out well.

Giving as a high a rating as I do for a Monogram Picture believe me it's worth your while to give this one a look.

Ok, this is a pretty good time waster, especially for those who crave for routine war films showing the American army, Navy or Air Force. Beginning a story taking place during the Korean war and resuming back to WW2 against Japan is rather strange but after all, why not? For the rest, the director Lesley Selander was a specialist of westerns, a chain western provider, one of the most prolific, besides Ray Nazarro, and here, in a war film, he proves that he could do something else than showing cow-boys, sheriffs, Indians or military fort intrigues. Good point for him, but this war film is anyway forgettable, compared to a William Wellman or Andrew Marton's feature.