Legendary production from Howard Hughes which took forever to shoot and reshoot and cost millions, but left a considerably legacy: it launched Hughes as a filmmaker, introduced Jean Harlow to the cinema going public as well as the phrase “you won’t mind if I slip into something more comfortable” and the title.
The plot is enjoyable melodrama -there are two brothers, one brave and quiet (James Hall), the other (Ben Lyon) a cowardly womanizer; they both love the same girl (Harlow), and get shot down over enemy lines; Lyons fights his cowardly instincts, and Hall has to shoot him so he won't give away Allied positions, and Hall gets executed by firing squad... sob!
James Hall comes across as a chubby middle ahed bank managed so you can’t really blame Harlow to go off with the bad brother as well. Actually come to think of it, Ben Lyon isn’t terribly charismatic either. (The actor who plays their German friend, Karl, is much more natural.)
Harlow’s amateurism in this film has been much commented on – she’s awkward, uncomfortable, not remotely English. But she does have charisma and sex appeal – she’s more compelling than anyone else in the film. (The worst performance incidentally is given by an air force pilot during the mess hall sequence who reports on the death of a comrade – he’s shocking). It helps that she wears some astonishingly low cut gowns that she’s almost falling out of – she was the first in a long, long line of big breasted leading ladies from Hughes. It’s very adult – Lyon pashes Harlow pretty much straight after they meet, and they have sex that night, while Hall is lying asleep in bed across town.
The Zeppelin attack sequence is deservedly famous – there’s an amazing but where the Germans order some of their soldiers to jump out to lighten their load, and it ends in a kamikaze attack from the British soldier which blows up the zeppelin. The big dog fight in the second half is also tremendous – planes buzzing around, turning upside down, blowing up, having bullets torn in. It goes on too long and is creaky but is worth watching.
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