Red Sky at Morning, Pilots Take Warning

[allisontooey]

Sorry for the lack of review on Wednesday; I had a lot of stuff going on. To somewhat make up for it, I'll be posting another double feature this weekend. To start with; the 1930 version of The Dawn Patrol.

I put the 1930 version of The Dawn Patrol on my “to watch” list because it had been recommended by dfordoom here on Livejournal and it seemed

Comments

[dfordoom]

it started to feel like the movie was repeating itself.

I'm pretty sure that was intentional. It's just an endless cycle of death. Or at least it's got to the point where they feel they're in an endless cycle of death. Hawks does much the same thing in Only Angels Have Wings - it's an endless dance of death. And in the very underrated Ceiling Zero as well.

I guess it's something that happens in all Hawks' movies about men facing death. Sooner or later death will win, but these are men who have the courage to keep on with the dance. They are men who have to participate in that dance. If they stopped they'd feel like they were dead anyway. But it does something to them.

In a Hawks movie there's usually a woman who comes to understand these men. Maybe the weakness of Dawn Patrol is the lack of a female character. A successful Howard Hawks action movie is not just about men who live this way, but about the women who love such men (such as the Jean Arthur character in Only Angels Have Wings and the Angie Dickinson character in Rio

[allisontooey]

That's an interesting take on things (and a nice insight into Hawks' style), so thanks a lot for that. Maybe my issue was that I prefer variety and forward momentum to trying to make a point through symbolic filmmaking. It would explain why I don't generally respond well to art films...

I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on the 1938 version, especially in comparison to this one. Maybe you'll see things that set it apart a little more.