THE DAWN PATROL (1930)

Along with ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT and THE EAGLE AND THE HAWK, this is one of the great WWI movies. It's often described as "anti-war," but the reasons for fighting are not really questioned. I think in its time, it would have been seen more as a thought-provoking portrayal of how men deal (or fail to deal) with looking death in the face day after day. Based on a short story, this feels like a stage play, with almost all the action taking place in an isolated pilots' outpost in France. It's not made to seem particularly claustrophobic, but the men are far from the nearest town and any non-military social contact. Richard Barthelmess and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. are best friends and gung-ho pilots, and we see how the daily casualty reports and constant turnover of new inexperienced pilots gets to them after a while, blunting their bravado. They focus their fear into resentment at Neil Hamilton, their commanding officer, who doesn't have to fly himself but does have to make the daily decisions about whom to send up on missions in which, inevitably, some will not return. After Hamilton is reassigned, Barthelmess becomes commander and has to make the hard choices. When Fairbanks' kid brother (William Janney) arrives and gets sent up to certain death, the relationship between Barthelmess and Fairbanks is strained. In the end, Barthelmess gets Fairbanks drunk and substitutes for him on what amounts to a suicide mission. The film ends with Fairbanks as the new commander.

Most of the dialogue scenes feel a bit stagy but the aerial scenes are exciting and expertly handled (under Howard Hawks' direction). Even though Hamilton's anguish is a bit overdone, the rest of the acting is solid, especially Gardner James as Hollister, a pilot who is particularly affected by the deaths of his buddies. Frank McHugh has a small role. The song "Hurrah for the Next Man to Die" is used effectively throughout, indicative of the way most of the men give in to the idea of inevitable fate. Another interesting thematic element (also explored in other WWI films) is the admiration that both the German and British fliers have for each other, saluting a fallen enemy pilot has he spins down to certain death. The film was remade in 1938, using some of the same aerial footage, with very few changes in look or plot. The acting in the later version is more palatable to modern tastes, with Errol Flynn and David Niven as the two central friends, and Basil Rathbone as the commander--he comes off a bit less sympathetically than Hamilton, perhaps because of his stern screen persona. Both versions are worth seeing. [TCM]