Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Only Angels Have Wings

Cary Grant runs an airfield in South America. Fresh off the bananaboat comes dancer Jean Arthur. Also starring Rita Hayworth and Thomas Mitchell, directed by Howard Hawks.

I get a feeling of Milton Caniff from this film. Okay, there is no Terry or any pirates, but Grant plays a Pat Ryan or Steve Canyon kind of guy. It has some of the same spirit. All that is missing is a villain who talks of himself in the third person. It's a story about bravery and sacrifice, I guess. Jean Arthur is the Hawksian woman that prefers to hang out with the guys, and Grant gets to show that he can also look good in a leather jacket. It's old Hollywood at it's best.

2 comments:

  1. I love that part where you see the plane going past the huge birds. They do a lot of those Milton Caniff expressions - so serious. It's also got kind of that George Herriman thing where you feel like the characters are trapped in that landscape and they all have roles they can't escape. I can't remember clearly but I think it was Faulkner who wrote that death scene where they count down to take off.

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  2. It's a nice scene. Acoording to IMDB, it's taken almost word for word from a pilot's death that Hawks witnessed.

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