JohnHowardReid Copyright 25 August 1930 by First National Pictures, Inc. New York opening at the Winter Garden, 10 July 1930. U.S. release: 10 August 1930. 12 reels. 9,500 feet. 105½ minutes.Television title: FLIGHT COMMANDER.SYNOPSIS: The making of life-and-death decisions finally forces the flight commander to crack under the strain.NOTES: Academy Award, John Monk Saunders, Original Story (defeating Doorway to Hell, The Public Enemy, Laughter and Smart Money).COMMENT: You won't find "The Dawn Patrol" on any Best Films of the Year lists. In fact, it doesn't even make The New York Times supplementary list of "35 worthy pictures". The reason is simply that it's not very good. In fact it's the sort of movie that gives "old movies" their undeservedly bad name. (Amazing isn't it that this movie is shown constantly on television, while hundreds of far superior movies of the same vintage never ever see the light of day?) Jumpy continuity made even more jerky by the use of silent captions, dated dialogue and stilted acting, make "The Dawn Patrol" a bit of a chore to sit through — especially on the ground. (No wonder Barthelmess' career declined, even though his subsequent films show him in a far better light!) Fortunately, when the movie gets into the air, interest rises sharply — thanks to the breathtaking skill of Dyer's aerial camera-work. These scenes — and in fact all the exciting action material — were re-used (slightly trimmed) in the 1938 re-make directed by Edmund Goulding (which has the rare honor of being a re- make which is better than the original, thanks to the skills of its superior cast — Flynn, Niven and Rathbone).

Edgar Allan Pooh . . . but Warner Bros. was hardly subtle in 1938 with this ode to Pacifism. Rather than foreshadowing Warner's CAPTAINS OF THE CLOUDS (micromanaged by War-time censors four years later), DAWN PATROL could be more aptly titled DEAD DUCKS DOWN. As mid-level officers grouse amongst themselves, the Royal Air Force sends a constant stream of fresh meat (in the form of teenagers with LESS than 10 hours of flight time) to the front lines, oblivious to the fact that 75% of them are dying on their first combat mission. No doubt a source of inspiration a few years later for the Japanese Kamikazi pilots of WWII, this "Lost Generation" is figuratively marched off a cliff, abetted by a virtual news vacuum in the Pre-Twitter days. Thanks to American heroes such as Zuckerberg and Snowden, a Western government would be hard put to stampede its Youth like mindless lemmings running off cliffs nowadays. Furthermore, since the U.S. was in a De Facto state of war with Japan in 1941, it's hard to view DAWN PATROL's two "heroic" sneak attacks on military ground targets as some sort of moral high ground above Pearl Harbor. If the post-Kitty Hawk military has any true heroes left, it's surely the folks on the ground who keep soldiering away despite knowing that sneaky aerial attacks can occur at any time.

gazzo-2 It's Top Gun time! You know the drill-Errol Flynn, Basil Rathbone and David Niven take on the Red Baron (von Richter my eye!) in WWI France, w/ high doses of carousing, drunkenness, young recruits trotted out wayy too early for their own good as cannonfodder, and of course, Errol doing what Errol always does-take on the the world and (pretty much) come out grinning.Well okay, not this time-winds up a glorious death instead-but you know how I mean. I enjoyed the stunts, the shots of the bombs falling, hitting and the explosions then surging back upwards at the camera--amazingly well done considering the age of the movie.Don't think for a second that George Lucas hasn't seen this, either.Oh, the acting-pretty much what you'd expect. The stock characters-including Barry Fitzgerald being Oirish and Melville Cooper a stiff upper lipper--all there. By all means check it out. It's not earth shattering but you will like what you see.*** outta ****

Robert J. Maxwell Fast-paced yarn of the Royal Flying Corps in 1915 France. The crates are falling apart, the death rate grows apace, but the seasoned fliers keep a stiff upper lip and all that. Flynn and Niven are two of the aviators under Squadron Commander Basil Rathbone. Everyone seems to be having a good time, except when they're being shot to pieces, except Rathbone who has been turned into a bundle of nerves by his responsibility for sending men up to die in those fragile crates.Rathbone is promoted out, and Flynn is made commanding officer. Now the burden rests with him and he gives up his profligate ways. Niven's brother arrives fresh out of flight school and Flynn, following orders, sends him on a mission from which he doesn't return. Riddled with guilt, Flynn flies a suicide mission, blows up a huge ammunition dump, and downs a couple of enemy planes before he himself is killed by von Richter, the ace. Niven is promoted to command and the whole lousy cycle begins again.(Kids: This story is about what we call "World War One." That's the war that came before "World War Two." The British were fighting against the Germans. The US entered the war late, on the side of the British. PS: We won.) The performances are okay, but the story now seems pretty dated, what with its heavy moral message in tow -- war is hell. I suppose it's an anti-war movie. The drunken recreation between missions is desperate and frantic. And in a climactic speech after Flynn's death, Donald Crisp as the adjutant spells it all out for us. The war is savage and destructive, just as the next one will be. Crisp might have done us all a greater favor if he'd explained exactly why it is that we feel compelled to get into another Big One every twenty years or so.But never mind that. Some exciting flying scenes here -- grafted on, I gather, from the earlier version of "Dawn Patrol", directed by Howard Hawks. Edmund Goulding's direction here is pedestrian. This territory belongs to Hawks or William Wellman or maybe Merian C. Cooper. (Perhaps the best WWI flying film is "The Blue Max," which is a different story, a little confused, but captures the thrill of flying exquisitely.) The script leaves something to be desired. It now seems formulaic, though it may not have seemed so to audiences of the time. Events follow one another at a rapid and predictable tempo. No sooner is David Niven's younger brother mentioned early on, than we know he's going to show up as a novice member of the squadron. Flynn's death came as something of a surprise, though. The schematic diagram calls for his successful return to base -- wounded, and with his airplane shot to pieces, but alive.And the scenes of drunken men between missions, singing "Hurrah For The Next Man to Die," fall flat. The drunkenness I can grasp, but the hilarity, no -- no matter how forced I understand it to be. Anyway, if you lose a young friend, you don't get happy if you drink. You get morose and have a crying jag. Freud was often wrong, but he was probably right when he said that grief work must be done. Paul Rosenblatt's content analysis of diaries shows that it doesn't disappear all at once, nor does it subside monotonically over time. The intensity of mourning does go down, but the decline is interrupted by irregular peaks, prompted by anniversaries, the discovery of a forgotten letter, or something. What we see here is the kind of grief work a screenwriter thinks up to help a story along.Not to bash the movie, though. It's enjoyable enough in its old-fashioned way, and the moral message, though trite, is sound enough.