Pluskylang Great Film overall

Kien Navarro Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Kirandeep Yoder The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

Taha Avalos The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

sol1218 ***SPOILERS*** Rip roaring war movie about the US Army Air Force in action over Nazi occupied Europe from the fall of 1943 up until the D-Day invasion on June 6,1944. It's during that period of time the fly boys naturalized the dreaded German Luftwaffe making it possible for the D-Day invasion to be successfully pulled off. With almost no German combat planes available to stop the invasion force from landing on the beaches of Normandy France countless thousands of allied casualties were prevented from occurring! Thus making the dangerous cross channel invasion a smashing success. But it was a heavy price that the US Air Force paid in achieving that: The lost of over 1,700 combat planes, shot down and damaged beyond repair, and almost 8,000 airmen killed wounded and captured.The movie centers around top USAAF Ace Maj. Ed Hardin, Edmound O'Brien, a former member of the legendary Flying Tiger who's going it alone tactics, in breaking formation to go after enemy planes, ended up costing his wing man's life. Threatened with a court martial for disobeying orders Hardin instead is put in command of his fighter squadron hoping that it would straighten him out. As expected Hardin, now a colonel, become the very company man that he resented when he was just a run of the mill combat pilot. In fact he becomes even more hard nosed then the hard nosed and by the books leader of the squadron Col.Bill Brickly, John Rodney,that he replaced!Great war footage taken by actual combat gunnery film cameras in both the European and Pacific theaters of war with the US Army Air Force fighter pilots blasting the enemy planes ships tanks and even locomotives sky high in vivid and deadly, not living, color. We also get to see Col.Hardin doing his thing as squadron leader in not only shooting Germen Me-109's out of the sky but getting his men, who really didn't need it, motivated to do the very same thing. The one mistake that Col. Hardin did that almost made him lose it, in telling his commanding officer off, was letting his good friend Capt. Stu Hamilton, Robert Stack, go on just one last mission after he come back from the states happily married to his childhood sweetheart Ann. In knowing that Stu wasn't exactly the same person that he was, brave gong-ho and suicidal, before he was married Stu with a German Me-109 on his tail thought of Ann for just a split second instead of thinking in how to get out of the German fighter's gun site! That's all it took to have Capt.Stu Hamilton end up being a dead instead of live US fighter pilot!Besides the great action scenes in the movie we also have some nice comic relief with the womanizing US Army air Force supply Sgt. Dolan, Tom D'Andrea, who uses a black cat,that spooks the airmen, that he himself snuck onto the air base as an excuse to get to the nearest town, by finding the cat a home, so he can keep up his fooling around with the local English female population! That's until his photo is printed in the local papers, with Sgt. Dolan's approval, and all the women that he promised to marry and later deserted storm the air base, shotgun & pitchfork in hand, gunning for him!P.S The film "Fighter Squadron" is also the first film to feature Jack Larson as US Army Air Force pilot Let. "Shorty" Kirk who was to later become Jimmy Olsen cub reporter in the TV hit series "The Advantures of Superman". And last but not least the film also introduced to the movie going public future Hollywood leading man the tall dark and raggedly handsome Rock Hudson as one of the member of Col. Hardin's fighter squadron. Hudson was so green in his acting ability at the time that it took some 38 takes for him to say the only line of dialog he had in the movie! "All that says he doesn't"!

j-boulet This movie gets better with time. Some of the best flying shots of the P-47 Thunderbolt. Most of the action segments must have used available planes (P-47); it was only 3 years after the end of the war, and there were plenty of Thunderbolts in top flying condition. To the credit of the film's producers, some of the air combat scenes used actual footage shot with "gun cameras' on Thunderbolts. This is clearly seen where ground targets , such as trains, are being strafed.Although the German fighters are clearly P-51's (with Luftwaffe markings), and not ME 109's, there were probably very few flyable Nazi combat aircraft of any type in 1948. This was decades before CGI!

billstrains I have read all of the other comments. Most (almost all) noticed the use of P-51D's for ME109's. While I am partial to P-51's (I actually flew one, I don't see anyone could mistake it for a Me109. In general it is an excellent flying movie but with lot's of tired dialog. I've known Generals like Gilbert. One thing that nobody seems to have noticed is that all of the aircraft during the D-Day landing DID NOT show the Invasion Markings, ah Hollywood research!! Of course I do like to see Edmund O'Brien, I've enjoyed him in several War movies, Also Rober Stack, there is one of his that I've been after but have not been able to find "Eagle Squadron". I also enjoyed seeing Superman's sidekick Jimmy Olson (Jack Larson). Henry Hull is always worth watching, and a very young Rock Hudson.

bill1518 I have seen this movie two times on late night TV and have enjoyed as much as 12 O'clock High. Although some critics may say it's superficial and more action oriented than 12 O'clock, I think it represents a needed aspect of the WWII air-war. Some parts are taken from actual incidents, like the rescue of a downed fellow pilot by another pilot by landing in a field and picking him up in enemy held territory. P-47 Thunderbolts with drop tanks were used to escort allied bombers until the long range P-51 became available. It is ironic that after the war the air force got rid of the P-47 in favor of the P-51 and that during the Korean war the P-51 suffered high casualties because they were used in a ground attack role in which the P-47 were much more suited. I do hope they come out with it on DVD soon.