Dive Bomber

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.

Seven years earlier Warner Brothers did a film called Here Comes the Navy which launched the buddy film genre and the teaming of James Cagney and Pat O'Brien. It was shot entirely on location at the naval base there.

This time it's a more sophisticated story about Navy test pilots and flight surgeons trying to lick the problems of flight. Dive Bomber takes for granted the fact that very shortly the USA will be in a shooting war.

What is unusual is the reverse casting in Dive Bomber. Normally Errol Flynn would have been the test pilot and visiting from Paramount Fred MacMurray would be the doctor. My guess is that Errol probably asked Jack Warner for the change to do something a little different. Errol told many a tall tale in his memoirs, but one thing that was consistent was that he did get bored with his heroic image.

It works out fairly well for both guys. In fact later on Fred MacMurray played Captain Eddie Rickenbacker, World War I air ace in another film and I'm sure he was cast there as a result of what he did in Dive Bomber.

Of course a lot of the film is phony. Our pilots or no one else's pilots ever used those diving suit like contraptions that Flynn and fellow doctor Ralph Bellamy designed for high altitude flying during combat. That did come post World War II however.

Nice aerial footage done in gorgeous technicolor is another positive feature of Dive Bomber. Howard Hughes couldn't have done it better.

One other thing, leading lady Alexis Smith met and married her husband Craig Stevens on the set of this film. Stevens was a contract player doing secondary roles for Warner Brothers. He would wait for stardom much later on as TV's Peter Gunn.

Dive Bomber should still have appeal for aviation fans everywhere on the planet.

While Dive Bomber has some formulaic elements, it is a glorious technicolor view of US naval aviation just before the US entered World War II. The air sequences include shots of aircraft (Vindicators, Devastators, Curtiss Hawks, etc.) that soon became obsolete and that I have never seen in any other technicolor film. The carrier scenes are set on the USS Enterprise the year before this ship fought in the Midway and Guadalcanal battles. The film is shot on location in San Diego, and I noticed landmarks like the Hotel Del Coronado and the Cabrillo lighthouse in the background. Thanks to Turner Classic Movies for playing this.

I have to side with those who have said the real stars are the pristine U.S. Naval aircraft of 1941, most still wearing the colorful prewar markings. But Flynn is always enjoyable, especially at this stage of his career, and he does a great job of playing off his cool Navy doctor personality against Fred MacMurray's hard bitten naval aviator.

There are some interesting Hollywood shortcuts in the film. As Swede Larson's Vindicator dive bomber goes into its fatal dive over Hawaii, the air gunner is seen in the rear seat. The crash is convincing, probably done with a large scale model, but the wreckage appears to be cobbled up from bits and pieces (Lockheed Vega tail) and doesn't even vaguely resemble a Vindicator. The fate of the air gunner is not addressed - maybe he was smart enough to have bailed out? Anyway he conveniently disappeared. The role of the enlisted troops in Naval Aviation is conveniently ignored, except for the hospital corpsmen.

I think the comedic interlude with Nazarro double-talking "Lucky's" wife is quite charming and reminiscent of Ronald Reagan's double talk with Raymond Massey's Nazi in DESPERATE JOURNEY. To the critics of this I say it was a 1940's thing; THEY thought it was funny. People today will already find Kelly McGillis's character with her seamed stockings and leather flight jacket already dated and corny in 1980s' TOP GUN. That's show biz; let it go.

Several shots aboard the USS ENTERPRISE show TBDs catching the wire on landing but the camera is angled up for "security" to avoid showing details of the Vindicators' arresting gear. So to answer those who talk about security obviously the Navy did throw in a few restrictions.

The "diving suit" high altitude gear is pure fantasy. But then, it's a movie.

Note for the "rough landing" by the bit player flight surgeon where a plane goes bouncing all over the field, a U.S. Navy N3N trainer is NOT abused in that way. A civilian biplane (possibly a Great Lakes) is repainted to resemble an N3N (and they got the national insignia too small).

For those who claim the film was NOT shot at North Island in San Diego, please note Flynn flies past the Del Coronado Beach Hotel. I knew two old men who were in the Navy and USMC and were stationed there and have fond memories of the movie. After the filming was complete, the film crew staged a big beer bust for all of the men who took part in helping make it. I was stationed there 30 years after the movie was made and a lot of the base still looked that way.

One puzzling thing, at the "Graduation" from Flight Surgeon School, the Navy band plays "SEMPER PARATUS," the U. S. Coast Guard march. The "Dive Bomber March" by Max Steiner, used throughout the movie, was good enough to be re-used later for the Robert Stack P-47 movie FIGHTER SQUADRON, as well as John Wayne's WW-2 sub flick, OPERATION PACIFIC

In many respects, this film is really a documentary of U.S. Naval Aviation in 1941 with a superficial film plot thinly superimposed. But it's a treasure!

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.)