A Largely Forgotten Classic
In addition to Jolson musicals and other vintage productions, as a young adult enjoying my V.C.R. in the early 1980s, I watched many classic World War I films - a subject that has always fascinated me. How, I have pondered for over four decades, could Europe be so self-destructive as to go to war over a slain Archduke and Duchess, or even simmering colonial disputes?
The film I will focus on has nothing to do with the brutal trench warfare, but instead centers on what was seen then (and even now) as the glamorous side of war: the war in the air. However, the 1933 Paramount film The Eagle and the Hawk strips away that glamour much like Sunset Boulevard did for Hollywood. Starring award-winning actor Fredric March, a very young and surprisingly ruthless Cary Grant, comedian Jack Oakie, Carole Lombard (who appears in only one memorable scene, billed as “the beautiful lady”), and veteran British actor Sir Guy Standing - who specialized in “colonial pictures” where “the sun never sets on the British Empire” - it is a cast well suited to the film’s powerful message.
The movie opens at a training field in England, where a novice pilot has just made a crash landing, flipping the plane over. Unhurt, Lieutenant Jeremiah Young (Fredric March) and Lieutenant Henry Crocker (Cary Grant) quickly begin arguing about Crocker’s flying until Sergeant Mike Richards (Jack Oakie) steps in with his genial manner to break it up.
The two are far from finished with each other and continue to clash when they are assigned to a British observation squadron, with Young as pilot and Crocker operating the camera and Lewis gun. After two months of combat and the loss of five observers, Young is already beginning to crack under the strain.
When Crocker shoots down an observation balloon, killing the observer as he drifts helplessly in a parachute, the entire squadron ostracizes him, even the normally good-natured Richards.
That night, the squadron is bombed, killing new arrivals whom Young calls “babies.” He is tormented by nightmares, witnessed by Crocker, who finally silences him with a punch to the jaw.
The next day, Crocker tells Major Dunham (Sir Guy Standing) that he refuses to fly with a pilot who’s cracking up. The Major’s solution is to give him leave in London—but the war follows Young across the Channel.
At a party hosted by a wealthy socialite, Young is surrounded by officers boasting of their exploits on the ground and in the air. Jerry is accustomed to this kind of bravado, but what truly unsettles him is the hostess’s young son, who also glorifies the war.
After leaving the party, Young is followed by a beautiful lady (Lombard) who tries to listen and comfort him. But he remains haunted by the war and resentful that his squadron and commander have made a hero of him. To reveal the ending would spoil the experience for first-time viewers, but I will say this: it is unforgettable as a statement against the inhumanity of war. March’s climactic speech to his squadron is every bit as powerful as Paul’s anti-war address to his old professor’s class in All Quiet on the Western Front (1930).
This is a short but first-rate film, and I’m surprised Turner Classic Movies doesn’t air it more often. It is a forgotten gem, as timely now as when it was released over 90 years ago.
