Hell's Angels (1930) Wonder
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Hell's Angels (1930) Wonder

Howard Hughes' epic starring Jean Harlow
Hells Angels (1930), was Howard Hughes' ode to the Flyboys of World War One. Its thin plot would have remained the least interesting part of the movie, save that Hughes cast Jean Harlow, later known as 'The Blonde Bombshell', in the title role of Helen, the femme fatale who comes between two brothers. Harlow's worldliness is so out of sync with the brothers' gee-whiz innocence that she seems almost like a modern day party girl who's dropped into the past to taunt them for their old-timey naiveté. Had Harlow been a better actress, this could have played as a comedy, rather than a melodrama. Still, this is the film that made Harlow an A-list movie star, and led to, among other things, comedy roles in which she shined.

But it is the aerial scenes that are the real star of this movie, and into which Hughes reportedly poured most of the production money. The planes that appear in the film were purchased and restored at a cost of $560,000. Getting the planes in the air over the course of the lengthy production cost $1,200,000. 72 pilots and 65 mechanics were on call for the film's aerial sequences, three of them died during shooting. Hughes also hired WWI aces to fly some of the aerial combat sequences. When one pilot refused to do a stunt, saying that it was too dangerous, Hughes himself did the stunt, crashing the plane, but getting the shot. Hughes was relentless in his quest to get the flying scenes right, and 249 feet of film was shot for every foot used in the final cut.

For fans of exotic warfare, there is also a sequence that involves a Zeppelin attack over London. It is worth noting that the fiery end of that sequence was filmed eight years before film of the real-life crash of the Hindenburg was taken in 1938.

Technically, the film is a bit like a science project. Hughes is said to have filmed the entire film as a silent, and then re-shot it as a talkie once sound technology became available, a fact that is most apparent in the Zeppelin scenes. Parts of the black and white film were hand-tinted, and an entire eight-minute-long sequence (one reel, in those days) is filmed using Technicolor's two strip "process 3" color (remarkably, the only surviving color film of Harlow in existence).

None of the film's flaws and sudden shifts in tone and color mattered to audiences, however, and Hell's Angels easily outsold everything else at the box office that year, on the strength of the film's action sequences and Harlow's flamboyant lasciviousness. It was the top-grossing movie of the year, but still failed to make back, in its initial release, the $3.95 million (equivalent to $58 million in 2017) that Hughes had put into it, making it at that time the most expensive movie ever filmed.

The film was re-released by Astor Pictures in 1939, cut back to 90 minutes after eliminating pre-code scenes that were no longer acceptable in post-1934 Hollywood. All color prints of the movie were thought to be lost until a print was found in John Wayne's personal vault in 1989, ten years after the actor's death, by his son Michael Wayne (which is why the younger Wayne's name appears on the credits of the restored version). It is possible that Wayne received the print directly from Howard Hughes - the actor starred in Jet Pilot (1957) for Hughes in 1949, but the film was not released until 1957 because Hughes continued to have the flying sequences re-shot, a situation not unlike this film.
 

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