DIVE BOMBER (1941)

Despite its title and year of release, this is not a war picture. It tells the story of the discovery of the pressurized suits that pilots used when flying in their bombers. If it can be said to belong to any genre, it would be medical-science melodrama, with male bonding in place of opposite-sex romance (despite the brief presence of the lovely Alexis Smith). Errol Flynn plays a cocky Navy doctor who goes into research, trying to find a solution for the dangers of pilots blacking out at very high altitudes. Fred MacMurray is his nemesis, a pilot who thinks that Flynn's bad judgment was responsible for the death of his buddy. The two wind up reconciled, partly due to the efforts of Ralph Bellamy. Regis Toomey is a doomed pilot; Allen Jenkins provides some ill-timed comic relief with various escapades involving hiding from his shrieking harpy of a wife, Dennie Moore, who reminded me of Bewitched's Gladys Kravitz. Lots of good flying footage and nice use of Technicolor, but a little too predictable.