Watch The Dawn Patrol For Free

Perfect cast and a good story

Good concept, poorly executed.

As Good As It Gets

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Copyright 25 August 1930 by First National Pictures, Inc. New York opening at the Winter Garden, 10 July 1930. U.S. release: 10 August 1930. 12 reels. 9,500 feet. 105½ minutes.Television title: FLIGHT COMMANDER.SYNOPSIS: The making of life-and-death decisions finally forces the flight commander to crack under the strain.NOTES: Academy Award, John Monk Saunders, Original Story (defeating Doorway to Hell, The Public Enemy, Laughter and Smart Money).COMMENT: You won't find "The Dawn Patrol" on any Best Films of the Year lists. In fact, it doesn't even make The New York Times supplementary list of "35 worthy pictures". The reason is simply that it's not very good. In fact it's the sort of movie that gives "old movies" their undeservedly bad name. (Amazing isn't it that this movie is shown constantly on television, while hundreds of far superior movies of the same vintage never ever see the light of day?) Jumpy continuity made even more jerky by the use of silent captions, dated dialogue and stilted acting, make "The Dawn Patrol" a bit of a chore to sit through — especially on the ground. (No wonder Barthelmess' career declined, even though his subsequent films show him in a far better light!) Fortunately, when the movie gets into the air, interest rises sharply — thanks to the breathtaking skill of Dyer's aerial camera-work. These scenes — and in fact all the exciting action material — were re-used (slightly trimmed) in the 1938 re-make directed by Edmund Goulding (which has the rare honor of being a re- make which is better than the original, thanks to the skills of its superior cast — Flynn, Niven and Rathbone).

It's Top Gun time! You know the drill-Errol Flynn, Basil Rathbone and David Niven take on the Red Baron (von Richter my eye!) in WWI France, w/ high doses of carousing, drunkenness, young recruits trotted out wayy too early for their own good as cannonfodder, and of course, Errol doing what Errol always does-take on the the world and (pretty much) come out grinning.Well okay, not this time-winds up a glorious death instead-but you know how I mean. I enjoyed the stunts, the shots of the bombs falling, hitting and the explosions then surging back upwards at the camera--amazingly well done considering the age of the movie.Don't think for a second that George Lucas hasn't seen this, either.Oh, the acting-pretty much what you'd expect. The stock characters-including Barry Fitzgerald being Oirish and Melville Cooper a stiff upper lipper--all there. By all means check it out. It's not earth shattering but you will like what you see.*** outta ****

Flying aces go out on World War 1 missions, while they know that many of them shall not return, especially the younger inexperienced pilots.Basil Rathbone is the squadron leader who appears to be sadistic in handing out the assignments. David Niven and Errol Flynn are at his throat regarding this. To get even with them, when Rathbone is promoted, he recommends Flynn as his replacement. Who comes along? Niven's younger brother, inexperienced and ready to fly. Obviously, Niven doesn't want him up in the air but there is nothing that Flynn can do. We have to follow orders, and it's duty above all. You don't have to be a wizard to next guess what occurs and who is blamed for this.Flynn takes to the skies to since he is upset with what happened to Niven's brother.This patriotic movie is a good one but is quite obvious from beginning to end.Interesting that this 1938 film starred Flynn, Rathbone and Melville Cooper. They all were in the Robin Hood film that same year.

Warner Brothers more than most of the other major studios had a habit of simply recycling the old plots of their films and repackaging them. A good example would be the boxing film Kid Galahad remade a few years later as The Wagons Roll at Night with the setting now changed to a circus. But in this case we didn't get a remake of The Dawn Patrol, we got practically a carbon copy.I finally saw the original The Dawn Patrol that was made in 1930 by Howard Hawks and found that this film was practically a word for word remake of the Hawks classic. Of course it was no surprise to learn that all the aviation sequences were just lifted bodily from the first film, but probably more than that was done. Several long-shots looked exactly the same.In a way this might have worked out because director Edmund Goulding who was not known for action films could concentrate on the actors and he got very good performances out of Errol Flynn, David Niven, and Basil Rathbone who step into the parts that Richard Barthelmess, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., and Neil Hamilton did the first time around.Still after seeing first one version, than the other, one might be complaining of double vision at that.