Hell's Angels

US (1930): Drama/War

Two brothers attending Oxford enlist with the RAF when World War I breaks out. Roy (James Hall) and Monte (Ben Lyon) Rutledge have very different personalities. Monte is a freewheeling womanizer, even with his brother's girlfriend Helen (Jean Harlow). He also proves to have a yellow streak when it comes to his Night Patrol duties. Roy is made of strong moral fiber and attempts to keep his brother in line. Both volunteer for an extremely risky two-man bombing mission for different reasons. Monte wants to lose his cowardly reputation and Roy seeks to protect his brother. Their assignment to knock out a strategic German munitions facility is a booming success, but with a squadron of fighters bearing down on them afterwards, escape seems unlikely. (Gary Jackson, IMDb)

Howard Hughes and Edmund Goulding and James Whale (who remain uncredited) direct this Harry Behn and Howard Estabrook story. At $3.8 million, it was the most expensive movie ever made at the time of its release, and as such made no profit on that first release. There is some breathtaking aerial photography and a memorable sequence of a German zeppelin over London. It has been calculated that 249 feet of film were shot for every foot used in the Hughes' final cut. The film also contains some Technicolor footage, with an eight-minute 2-strip Technicolor sequence that remains as the only surviving color footage of Jean Harlow.

 Use this link to view Sid Grauman's promo featurette for Hell's Angels on TCM.com.

1 nomination