This is a fun to watch propaganda piece from 1941 that down deep is pretty silly and inconsequential. Now this ISN'T to say it's not worth watching, but it just isn't that great a film from the point of view of logic. In other words, to enjoy it, it might be best to turn off your brain first--at least the part of it that might balk at the silly writing and impossibilities! Tyrone Power plays a pretty obnoxious but highly talented jerk. He joins the RAF--not because he necessarily believes in the cause but because he wants to bag a girl! Throughout the film he chases pretty Betty Grable and you assume he somehow becomes a better person by the end of the film and they get married. Well, this is half right. He's still a jerk but apparently Miss Grable has learned to lower her standards (for more on this, do a search on "Artie Shaw"). However, unlike Betty, I found Tyrone was great fun to watch and a "swell guy" but someone no sane woman would want, since he's pretty much full of himself and never seems to learn! Fortunately, while this relationship made no sense, the action was excellent and exciting. While the cockpit wasn't quite right (for airplane purists, it looked like that of a Hurricane fighter not a Spitfire), the use of stock footage was for once impeccable. Instead of the usual grainy footage poorly integrated into the film, this was gorgeous and much of the footage of Spitfires in flight appears to have been staged for the movie. When stock footage was employed, it was seamless.
So overall, it's a dandy little curio from WWII. It's neither great nor bad--just a mixed bag that is still somehow pretty watchable.
So overall, it's a dandy little curio from WWII. It's neither great nor bad--just a mixed bag that is still somehow pretty watchable.