Lovesusti The Worst Film Ever
Lucybespro It is a performances centric movie
Borgarkeri A bit overrated, but still an amazing film
Allissa .Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.
BasicLogic Lots of small talks, smiles, no ranking comrade crap, bad acting and most of all, horrible laughable childish screenplay with annoying unnecessary dialog between and among these air force guys. this is the film shot in 1942 or 1943, a very unrealistic WWII propaganda film, but I do not share the least blind and/or patriotic praises that most of the viewer contributed in IMDb, yet I completely agreed with those few reviewers who gave the lowest and the least ratings on this lousy film. There's nothing worth praising for this childish film, it's a big laugh if compares it to those real serious WWII films. I kept shaking my head during watching this pathetic film. An Oscar? What a joke! It only made the Oscar itself like a joke and completely lost its authenticity of awarding the best films for any category. What a lousy film, one of the worst WWII B/W war films.
DKosty123 Starting with the Lincoln Quote from the Gettysburg Address through the Rah Rah ending, this war movie perfectly reflects the time it is made. These were the dark times when the Pearl Harbor Attack happened. It is the equal to 9/11/2001 in it's time.This movie is about rallying the troops by telling the story of the B-17 Mary-Ann, which starts with the plane flying into Pearl Harbor after the attack all the way to the Philippines. It is quite a story as the tragic consequences of the start of the war are worked into the story.The mood of war propaganda is captured perfectly. In fact, I be the entire movie had to be approved by every government censor of the era. The special effects are top notch and the final battle sequence where it appears half of the Japanese Navy is sunk is pure propaganda. Still, Warner Brothers is successful here packaging the story to the mass audience at the time. The action is worth the ission even if the story is lacking due to the censors.
vincem41 To those people who are so caught up in political correctness that they can not for the life of them watch a period film without smugly pointing out all of "incorrect" and "offensive" parts, thus enhancing their own "moral superiority" and "self-esteem" – I say please stop watching movies made before your twenty-first birthday. That way you will not be offended and will not have to deal with reality. Look kiddies – it was 1943, the Japanese had just attacked Pearl Harbor, they had perpetrated the Bataan Death March and the Rape of Nanking. They were on nobody's short list of nice guys. The were in fact "F***ing Japs", "Slopeheads" and a whole lot of other non-printable epithets, By the way, at the same time the Germans were "Krauts", "Squareheads" and "F***ing Nazis" – Italians were universally referred to a "Wops", "Dagos" & "Greaseballs"- by the way all of my uncles who fought in the ETO were Italian-American - and they used the "nicknames" for Italians. They were the enemy. Get over it!!! Speaking from experience, when someone is actively engaged in trying to kill you, and you him, you could care less about political correctness or the ENEMY'S feelings. They are the enemy – thus for me, they will ALWAYS be "Gooks" and "Gomers" and if that hurts their feelings – oh well!! By the way, despite the best efforts of the government and the political correctness mafia – today's combat troops refer to the bad guys as "Rag Heads" and "Muji's". Again, deal with it.Also – 1943 – we barely had enough planes to fight the war, (thanks to the pre-war peace lobby) let alone make movies with them. The fact that the P-39 was somewhat less than a stellar performer just might be the reason that it was available to make this movie, among other "inconsistencies. The fictional battles and actions were a result of the fact that when this film was made there were very few Air Force victories to brag about in the Pacific – yes it was "propaganda" – so what? Finally, many of you use the word "propaganda" like it's a bad thing. Perhaps you feel that we shouldn't be all "Rah, Rah" for our side?? Whose side should we be "Rah, Rah" for? Or do you think in a war you should remain "neutral", not caring which side wins, just so long as "your" nominal side retains the moral high ground. Well hell, Belgium had the moral high ground in two world wars – ask them how they enjoyed it.
LeroyBrown-2 Back when I was a kid one of the local station in my town would show this movie frequently. My brothers and I would watch it every time we can and it became a personal favorite. As the station grew more prosperous and moved on to other things, this movie disappeared along with dozens of old movies. The innocence of childhood made war movies enjoyable. Of course we all know now the old cliché "War is Hell". Anyway, of all the war movies that I enjoyed in my childhood this one was special. It inspired me to try and get into the air force, (4F). The movie of course is a wartime propaganda made to boost morale of our nation. There are dozens like these made during that time but I think this is one of the best. The movie begins with the flight crew of the B-17 bomber the "Mary Ann' on a routine flight from San Francisco to Honolulu on the evening of December 6, 1941. During the flight we get to meet the crew and they are just the standard WWII crew in any movie. The New York cabbie ("It ain't New York once you cross the Brooklyn bridge."), the farm boy, the old vet who would fight anybody who demeans the air corp and the outcast.The dialog for the most part isn't very original, but what Howard Hawks knew then was that dialogs in on itself can be entertaining specially if they are delivered in his usual Rat-tat-tat style. Mr Hawks know how to make any movie entertaining, even when the crew were just listening to the radio it was very entertaining. But the movie was a war propaganda and we soon plunge into the attack on "Pearl Harbor", the combat scenes in this movie are some of the best I've seen in movies from that era. They're very exciting and fast paced as a matter of fact I think some of the scenes when they were airborne and fighting off the enemies might have inspired the scenes in "Star Wars" when the 'Millenium Falcon' was under attack.The special effects on this film garnered it an Oscar nomination (one of four the film got it won best editing) and it's pretty decent for the 1940s. The miniatures are obvious now, specially if compared to some of the latest CGIs, nevertheless it's very well done. Although I still don't know if the shot over the Golden Gate bride was real or not.Yes the movie had a racist tone and yes it has a rah-rah feel to it. But one must the times, the United States was attacked because our transgression against the Japanese was we cut off supply to them after they invaded China and Manchuria (Korea) and slaughtered hundreds of thousand innocent civilian. The movie also has a problem with it's time line, from the bombing of Pearl Harbor, to the last stand at Wake island to the evacuation from Manila to the Battle of Coral Sea? Coral sea took place five months after Pearl Harbor. Nevertheless it's a very good film and will remain a favorite of mine for a long time.
