Directed by Howard Hughes

Wow. Over 2 and a half hours.

It won an Oscar for best cinematography. Little wonder. Flying bits were awesome - airship attack and crash over London was awesome - dog fights were awesome - Jean Harlowe's strategic use of wardrobe was awesome.

The story was OK but the dialog was lame, acting stiff, pacing not so hot. All very contrived. You can see why it didn't win best actor or anything like that.

A lot of people die in some of the most overblown melodramatic death scenes ever recorded on film. Many of them are pilots in the cockpit with cameras mounted forward of the cockpit looking back. This gives us pilot closeups but shows enough of the tail and the horizon to be interesting. The pilots "die" while putting their aircraft into various unusual attitudes, spinning and rolling while they pretend to kick off. One guy did a Gene Simmons that was fairly spectacular as the blood flowed back and up his face. The audience was laughing out loud at some of the really overdone ones. These guys are definitely pilots first, actors second.

The film was shot in black and white, yet many scenes have color. For instance, night exterior shots are blue washed. The flaming airship crash is red. There is a fancy ball sequence with fairly realistic color which was all hand tinted. The bits of earth and debris rising up from the bombing of the munitions dump is a prototypical 3D type shot coming at you out of the screen with high definition and larger than life. Bravo!

This was a newly restored print - no scratches to be seen. Really top notch restoration. Highly recommend you see it if you get a chance.