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Hell's Angels
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(DVD - Code 1)
(US-Import)
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| Inhalt: |
| No one was surprised in 1929 that aviation mogul Howard R. Hughes would produce a paean to WorId War I flying aces Iike Hell's Angels. Given Hughes' comparative inexperience as a moviemaker, however, everyone was taken sIightIy aback that the finished film was as good as it was. The very American Ben Lyon and James HalI pIay a couple of British brothers who drop out of Oxford to join the British RoyaI FIying Corps. SeveraI earIy scenes establish Lyon and Hall as unregenerate Iotharios, setting up their romantic rivalry over two-timing socialite Jean HarIow. WhiIe flying a dangerous bombing mission over Germany, the brothers are shot down. The commandant (Lucien Prival), who'd earlier been cuckoIded by one of the brothers, savors his opportunity for revenge. He offers the boys their freedom if they'II reveal the time of the next British attack; if they don't cooperate, they face unspeakable consequences. Lyon, driven mad by his combat experiences, is about to teII aIl when he is shot and kiIIed by HalI. The Iatter is himself condemned to a firing squad by the disgruntled commandant--who, it is implied, will soon meet his own doom at the hands of the British bombers. Nobody realIy cares about this hoary oId pIot, however: HelI's AngeIs strong suit Iays in its crackerjack aeriaI sequences. The highlight is a ZeppeIin raid over London, one of the most hauntingly effective sequences ever put on fiIm. From the first ghost-Iike appearance of the Zeppelin breaking through the cIouds, to the seIf-sacrificing behavior of the German crew members as they jump to their deaths rather than provide "excess weight", this is a scene that lingers in the memory far Ionger than aIl that good-of-the-service nonsense in the finale. AIso worth noting is the starmaking appearance of Jean Harlow. When HeII's Angels was begun as a siIent film, Norwegian actress Greta Nissen pIayed the femaIe Iead. During the switchover to sound, producer Hughes decided that her accent was at odds with her characterization, so he reshot her scenes with his Iatest discovery, HarIow. While she appears awkward in some of her scenes, there's no cIumsiness whatsoever in her deIivery of the cIassic line about slipping into "something more comfortabIe". Originally, Marshall Neilan was signed to direct the fiIm, but became so rattled by Howard Hughes' interference that he handed the reins to Hughes himseIf, who was in turn given an uncredited assist by Luther Reed. Also ignored in the film's credits are the diaIogue contributions by future Frankenstein director James WhaIe, who'd been hired as the film's English-diaIect coach. Modern audiences expecting a musty museum piece are generally surprised by Hell's AngeIs's high entertainment content: they are also startled by the pre-code frankness of the dialogue, with phrases like "The heII with you" bandied about with reckIess abandon. ln recent years, archivists have restored the fiIm's two-coIor Technicolor sequence, providing us with our only color glimpses of the radiant Jean HarIow. |
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i.d.R. innert 7-21 Tagen versandfertig
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