Gli angeli dell'inferno

With the release of "The Aviator" there will be renewed, and well deserved, interest in this classic. Hell's Angels holds together surprisingly well for a 75 year old film. Sure there is the over-emoting one would expect from a film that bridges the era between silents and talkies, but the character development is good, the flight scenes are amazing and the story holds the attention from beginning to end. And we haven't even talked about Jean Harlow!! There can be no doubt that Howard Hughes was a genius, a perfectionist, and that he set out to, and did, produce of of the greatest movies of all time. The most expensive film of it's day, and worth every penny.

I saw this movie many years ago, and just tonight on DVD. Wow. This film has been remastered by the UCLA Archives, and the sound is very clear. Clear enough, that you can hear some rather explicit language coming from Monte during the dogfight sequence. And if you understand German, there is even more. Definitely before the Code. This is a Great film, and for those who would criticize the acting, editing, etc, compare it to other films made during the first years of the "talkie era." It stands up very well. Pay special attention to the wounded pilots as they are dying in their planes. Very gritty. The realism of the aerial battles has never been equaled. This film is a true classic. How many other classic films circa 1930 come to mind? Not many.

This is a fabulous film, far ahead of its time. The screenplay is outstanding, and all the actors did a marvelous job, and the ones who played Germans as well. There was only one German in a minor role and one Finnish actor, who played a German, all the others were Americans, to my big surprise! I am an Austrian and German is my mother tongue and I would have bet that there were at least half a dozen Germans in this movie! I was also mesmerized by the details of the air battles, which were mostly shot in the air. Jean Harlow was beautiful and gave a persuading performance, not to mention her great looks! I rented this movie, because I heard about it the first time, when I watched "The Aviator" and I have to say that this picture is one of the most entertaining and exciting movies I have seen in a long time and it should be an example how movies should be made as a guideline for modern day Hollywood! It is a perfect example that a great story, action and special effects can live together in a beautiful piece of art without sacrificing anything!

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.

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.