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If Flying Tigers (1942) strongly reminds you of Howard Hawks's great aviation drama Only Angels Have Wings (1939), it's not simply because John Carroll appears in both pictures. Elements of plot and character were virtually lifted wholesale from the earlier film (and without credit, leading some to suggest Hawks should sue). But here, this tale of a tight-knit team of flying aces - and an arrogant maverick who finally sees his duty and sacrifices himself for the common good - is turned to the war effort. Flying Tigers became a major boost for minor studio Republic and another big leap in John Wayne's growing stardom, and earned Oscar® nominations for Best Score, Best Sound and Best Visual Effects.

Wayne, in his first of many war films, plays the leader of a squadron of flyers in the U.S. volunteer group known as the Flying Tigers, a real-life corps that defended Chiang Kai-Shek's China in the days before the U.S. entered World War II. Carroll plays disobedient wisecracker Woody Jason (closely approximating Richard Barthelmess's role as the dissension-causing pilot under Cary Grant's command in Hawks's film) and Paul Kelly is Wayne's second-in-command, a role that resembles Thomas Mitchell's part in the earlier film as a pilot whose eyesight is failing.

This has elements of a '30s-style aviation picture (e.g. Only Angels Have Wings) and a WWII air force morale booster. Before Pearl Harbor, a bunch of American civilian pilots in China operate their own squadron, flying for Chiang Kai-shek. Cowards redeem themselves, cynics see the light; sidearms are worn as routinely as in a Dodge City saloon, about the only detail that strikes one as authentic. Did this sort of thing boost morale? Did the sight of the Duke in his fake cockpit, smiling grimly at some interpolated newsreel carnage, really offer aid and comfort, except to schoolkids? Remarkable, if so.

Gary Tooze

April 30th, 2014