Thunder Birds: Soldiers of the Air

"Thunder Birds" is an innocuous movie of war propaganda, made by W.A. Wellmann, a first- rate director, with his usual professionalism. The locations are beautiful, the Technicolor is outstanding, and the flying scenes are accurately shot. The story is standard, a nice blend of adventure-action and comedy, with some good emotional scenes in the part placed in England, dominated by Dame May Witty.

What makes "Thunder Birds" special, and its message stronger, is the use of Gene Tierney as a symbol. Yes, she is called to represent exactly "what we fight for". We (the young men from America, Great Britain, China) fight for that dream of a girl, for her smile, for the hot dogs we devour with her, for her nylon stockings, for our freedom and prosperity that she embodies. And she doesn't leave us alone, like a damned arrogant European princess. She helps and supports us, with a merry smile and without any conceit. Here, among us, there's no room for the gruesome death-rhetoric of the barbarian killers we fight.

To be honest, I admit that anyone out of the mass of splendid American actresses of the 1940s could play the role of Gene Tierney in "Thunder Birds", with excellent results. But only with the Goddess of Beauty, shining on the screen, all the parameters go to infinity.

My wife's uncle , George Wood ,was an RAF trainee Sergeant Pilot at the Base when this film was made . The film as part of its propaganda purpose made use of his , and other courses , and he appears full head and shoulders in a scanned shot of a parade . He looks like a young boy . He completed his training and went on to fly Wellington Bombers , regrettably he was shot down over Holland in 1943 . We knew he had appeared in a film but were not sure of the title and by chance came across a Cinema Poster for Thunder Birds on the Internet and this showed RAF personnel marching past aircraft . We had a black and white photograph of him standing by similar aircraft and thus established a possible link . We were subsequently able to obtain a copy of the film . The aerial shots are astounding and do seem ahead of their time .

THUNDER BIRDS only gets a "6" from me because of its brilliant Technicolor photography, which looks marvelous on the print TCM is showing. Otherwise, I'd rank it much lower, even though it stars GENE TIERNEY, PRESTON FOSTER and JOHN SUTTON.

Ironically, as long as it stays in the air, it's on firm ground. The minute the planes land, the routine story does nothing but get nowhere for seventy-eight minutes.

There are a few compensations. One of them is Tierney looking stunning in all of her Technicolor close-ups. The other is the pleasure of seeing PRESTON FOSTER and JOHN SUTTON get more screen time than usual as the men she has to choose between. Unfortunately, all three of them have one-dimensional roles that any routine actor could play and none of them deliver anything special in the acting department.

Under William A. Wellman's direction, it's the spectacular aerial photography that stands out. He's unable to do anything with the trite happenings on the ground, given the poor quality of the script.

Trivia notes: When Sutton talks about his grandfather, he pulls out an old photo of director William Wellman wearing pilot gear.

The background score depends heavily on "There Will Never Be Another You" from the Sonja Henie/John Payne film ICELAND produced by Fox the same year, this time used only as orchestral music.

A well done Technicolor story about flight training at Thunderbird Field, Arizona in 1942 at the height of WWII. Great cast of supporting players, with main stars Gene Tierney, Preston Foster, and John Sutton well suited for their roles. Beautiful flying shots with the Arizona desert as background. The dialogue in some spots is not too realistic in terms of aviation, e.g. when Preston Foster, playing the role of a civilian flight instructor at a military training school exclaims that a student's "motor conked out" while viewing the incident from the ground with his former sweetheart, Gene Tierney. Hilarious scene early in the movie where civilians are learning to be "civilian defense" first aid workers: Preston Foster, leg in cast, is loaded into an ambulance that then races away with the back door unlatched ejecting him out the back door and allowing him to fall attached to a stretcher onto the street. Touching brave sentiments portrayed by famed English actress, Dame May Whitty, on the loss of her son in combat. Jack Holt as the C.O. of the school, and Reginald Denny, as the British officer in charge of English cadets, add greatly to the overall quality of the picture, and Holt's facial expressions when he is dancing with Gene Tierney are particularly funny in the dance scene late in the picture. Peter Lawford has an uncredited bit part as a cadet in the movie. Overall, a very enjoyable movie if the viewer is interested in WWII aviation pictures, especially for the color quality.

TRIVIA NOTE: Famed aviation ace Richard Bong is one of the pilots flying the formation of North American AT-6s ("Texans") in the movie (uncredited), done before he shipped out to the Pacific to become the "Ace of Aces" by shooting down 40 Japanese planes, more than any other US pilot in WWII. (He died 8/6/45 at Burbank, California while taking off in a P-80 "Shooting Star" jet which lost power on takeoff.)

GOOF: in the water tower scene early in movie, Preston Foster, in a trainer from the base, buzzes water-bathing Gene Tierney and drops her his flight suit from the plane to use for cover/clothing when she gets out of the water tower. Film editing mistake shows her catching the flight suit, but then a shot of Foster's plane flying away shows the flight suit being thrown out from the plane (after she already has it!).

The man who directed this film about aerial training, William "Wild Bill" Wellman, was a daring pilot himself, and was not only responsible for Wings, the first Oscar winning feature, but also helmed The Ox Bow Incident, Public Enemy and 1937's A Star Is Born, and compared to those classics, this is rather weak tea, rescued by Technicolor, a 22 year old Gene Tierney, and its historical value as a WWII flag-waver. Studio director Daryl Zanuck wanted to give Gene Tierney, his doll-like starlet, plenty of exposure; here she was just a few years away from her indelible performances in Laura and Leave Her To Heaven; Tierney is paired with old reliable Preston Foster in a tale set in the Arizona desert, where the brilliantly colored blue and yellow prop planes dazzle the eye, set against desert sands and clear blue sky; the story is essentially older man vs. younger flier (sometimes leading man John Sutton) who vie for the heart of the fair maid, but the side benefits of the film outweigh the tired plot elements: how often do we see young Chinese and British airmen in Arizona being trained by Americans? How things change!