A group of World War I veterans and up stunt pilots in the movies and end up dealing with an autocratic director who's just as bad as the Germans, resulting in a tragic crash during shooting. Richard Dix, Robert Armstrong, Joel McCrea and Hugh Herbert go up against the very cruel Erich von Stroheim who that is jealous over the fact that movie star Mary Astor once had a relationship with one of them. The survivors suspect that he sabotaged the plane that Armstrong was flying, resulting in a fiery conclusion. They take matters into their own hands, hoping to force a confession out of him, and von Stroheim ends up getting a severe taste of his own medicine.
This is quite the intense melodrama that gets even more melodramatic as the three men hold von Stroheim in a movie studio hangar, complete with the wailing winds going on outside in the middle of the night. There's a bit of comedy with Herbert as the hard drinking pilot, seen during the World War I footage being given a gun so he can go kill the cook, and some sensational flying sequences both in the combat moments and when they are on location shooting a movie. The reaction to Dix bidding farewell to a German in a plane about to crash is very funny.
Under the direction of George Archainbaud, this is a genuinely unsettling film about revenge without remorse, with excellent performances by everybody, but von Stroheim giving a performance nearly equal to Max in "Sunset Boulevard". Had there been supporting Oscar awards at the time, he definitely would have been a contender. Dorothy Peterson as "pest" is adorable. Certainly quite memorable as a pre-code melodrama that got an Oscar nomination for Max Steiner but certainly deserve to be honored for it sound effects.
This is quite the intense melodrama that gets even more melodramatic as the three men hold von Stroheim in a movie studio hangar, complete with the wailing winds going on outside in the middle of the night. There's a bit of comedy with Herbert as the hard drinking pilot, seen during the World War I footage being given a gun so he can go kill the cook, and some sensational flying sequences both in the combat moments and when they are on location shooting a movie. The reaction to Dix bidding farewell to a German in a plane about to crash is very funny.
Under the direction of George Archainbaud, this is a genuinely unsettling film about revenge without remorse, with excellent performances by everybody, but von Stroheim giving a performance nearly equal to Max in "Sunset Boulevard". Had there been supporting Oscar awards at the time, he definitely would have been a contender. Dorothy Peterson as "pest" is adorable. Certainly quite memorable as a pre-code melodrama that got an Oscar nomination for Max Steiner but certainly deserve to be honored for it sound effects.