spoilers-yes
A hidden anti-war gem. A marvel for its courage.
"The Eagle and the Hawk" is a minimal but concrete recreation of the lives of Air Force volunteers during world war one. Jerry Young (Fredric March) is a Flying Corps pilot who is more responsible for shooting (documenting) German positions than shooting people. But it's war close up and he' anguished and awed by the severe endings to the young lives who serve as his tail observers. Actual war deaths, as opposed to the glorifying and benign fictions fed him, evoke in him compassion and guilt. When Crocker (Carey Grant), a crack gunner, and the personification of cold-blooded macho, kills a parachuting German balloon observer (opposed to rules of engagement) from Young's tail position, Jerry's shell cracks. Broken-heartened and disillusioned, his life is robbed of sleep and solace. But because of his own survival of so many critical missions have given him hero status, he cannot cut and run. Caught in vicious cycle of metals, ribbons, honors, dinners, toasts, he is also caught in a deeper vicious cycle of killing and bloodshed. Tormented, he has but one exit, and after one final attempt to publicly lay bare his plights and that of lives he feels responsible for, he shoots himself.
Ironically, Crocker, the only soldier with the stomach to hear his speech, is the one who breaks away from this celebration in Young's honor, and finds his body. No longer able to feign callousness, he conceals his partner's corpse till the dawn mission, when he can set up an heroic battle death which is actually a double suicide--the eagle and the hawk going down together. This completes the unified statement this movie makes against war--so like the Winter Soldier Testimony held by Vietnam Vets and most recently by Iraqi Vets--in which "the war to end all wars" is exposed as a deeper commitment to the machinery of war.
A hidden anti-war gem. A marvel for its courage.
"The Eagle and the Hawk" is a minimal but concrete recreation of the lives of Air Force volunteers during world war one. Jerry Young (Fredric March) is a Flying Corps pilot who is more responsible for shooting (documenting) German positions than shooting people. But it's war close up and he' anguished and awed by the severe endings to the young lives who serve as his tail observers. Actual war deaths, as opposed to the glorifying and benign fictions fed him, evoke in him compassion and guilt. When Crocker (Carey Grant), a crack gunner, and the personification of cold-blooded macho, kills a parachuting German balloon observer (opposed to rules of engagement) from Young's tail position, Jerry's shell cracks. Broken-heartened and disillusioned, his life is robbed of sleep and solace. But because of his own survival of so many critical missions have given him hero status, he cannot cut and run. Caught in vicious cycle of metals, ribbons, honors, dinners, toasts, he is also caught in a deeper vicious cycle of killing and bloodshed. Tormented, he has but one exit, and after one final attempt to publicly lay bare his plights and that of lives he feels responsible for, he shoots himself.
Ironically, Crocker, the only soldier with the stomach to hear his speech, is the one who breaks away from this celebration in Young's honor, and finds his body. No longer able to feign callousness, he conceals his partner's corpse till the dawn mission, when he can set up an heroic battle death which is actually a double suicide--the eagle and the hawk going down together. This completes the unified statement this movie makes against war--so like the Winter Soldier Testimony held by Vietnam Vets and most recently by Iraqi Vets--in which "the war to end all wars" is exposed as a deeper commitment to the machinery of war.