AERIAL GUNNER (1943)

A wartime B-picture with mostly squandered potential--MGM or Warners could have done more with it. Chester Morris is "Foxy" Pattis, a lowlife fellow whose former friend (Richard Arlen) has become a district attorney whom Morris holds responsible for his father's death. Arlen enlists in the Army Air Corps and Morris is drafted; naturally, they both wind up at the same flight gunnery school. Morris is in charge of training a group of men including Arlen, Jimmy Lydon as a delicate kid whose father was killed at Pearl Harbor, and Dick Purcell as a guy with a knack for mechanics. The animosity between Morris and Arlen grows, especially when they both vie for Lydon's sister, Lita Ward (not a looker even by B-movie standards). Lydon can't quite cut it in training and dies in an accident during maneuvers. Ward blames Morris and cozies up to Arlen. Finally, in the South Pacific in real combat, after an inspiring speech from the doomed Keith Richards (rather handsome and no relation to the Rolling Stone), the men are put in a situation where one chooses to sacrifice himself for the other. Arlen is awfully stiff and romantically uninspiring. Morris, heading toward middle age, looks good in an Army buzz cut and does a fine job given the limitations of the writing and production--it's too bad he didn't get more soldier roles--although I confess I kept thinking the film would be more interesting with Errol Flynn or Dennis Morgan. Robert Mitchum has a good scene early on as a rival of Morris's.