SnoReptilePlenty Memorable, crazy movie

Beanbioca As Good As It Gets

AnhartLinkin This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Janis One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

bkoganbing When William Wellman does a film about his favorite subject aviation you can always be sure that the flying sequences will be among the best ever done in a given era. Wellman who was a member of the famed Lafayette Escadrille in World War I made all his aviation pictures with precision, care, and love. Thunder Birds: Soldiers Of The Air is no exception.Old World War I ace Preston Foster is to old for combat in this new World War, but he volunteers to be a civilian instructor at ThunderBird Field in Arizona for a new generation of fliers. The head of the base Jack Holt assigns Foster to Reginald Denny's British air cadets doing their training for the RAF in America. One of them is John Sutton who is the son of a British ace from the last war and a friend of Foster's who was killed.It doesn't look like Sutton has the right stuff and that's the considered opinion of all save Foster. Sutton does have some issues but he's determined to carry on in the family aviation tradition even though his original training is for the medical corps. His brother was killed on a bombing run into Europe and Sutton feels this is what he must do.Complicating things is the fact that both Foster and Sutton fall for Gene Tierney. Still Foster keeps his job and love life separate, but he's old enough and wise enough to keep it apart.Darryl Zanuck splurged for color on this film, not something normally done in the wartime cinema. It always seemed that Fox did use color more than any other of the major studios. It certainly adds to Bill Wellman's aviation sequences. Look fast and you'll see Peter Lawford as one of the British cadets. And in a flashback sequence as Sutton's grandmother Dame May Witty borrows a bit from her character from Mrs. Miniver and shows she hasn't lost any of the right stuff herself.Aviation buffs will love Thunder Birds: Soldiers Of The Air. The rest of us will find it more than acceptable.

museumofdave The man who directed this film about aerial training, William "Wild Bill" Wellman, was a daring pilot himself, and was not only responsible for Wings, the first Oscar winning feature, but also helmed The Ox Bow Incident, Public Enemy and 1937's A Star Is Born, and compared to those classics, this is rather weak tea, rescued by Technicolor, a 22 year old Gene Tierney, and its historical value as a WWII flag-waver. Studio director Daryl Zanuck wanted to give Gene Tierney, his doll-like starlet, plenty of exposure; here she was just a few years away from her indelible performances in Laura and Leave Her To Heaven; Tierney is paired with old reliable Preston Foster in a tale set in the Arizona desert, where the brilliantly colored blue and yellow prop planes dazzle the eye, set against desert sands and clear blue sky; the story is essentially older man vs. younger flier (sometimes leading man John Sutton) who vie for the heart of the fair maid, but the side benefits of the film outweigh the tired plot elements: how often do we see young Chinese and British airmen in Arizona being trained by Americans? How things change!

J. Spurlin A veteran American flyer (Preston Foster) trains new recruits, including the acrophobic son (John Sutton) of his dead war buddy. Complications arise when the younger man falls in love with his mentor's girl (Gene Tierney).This propaganda piece, with a hackneyed love triangle, contains one bad scene: at a Red Cross station, where nurses are being trained, we get some dull slapstick and an unchivalrous attempt to make an unattractive girl the butt of several jokes. Everything else works well enough. The acting is solid, the color is gorgeous and the aviation scenes are impressive. A nice flashback scene features Dame May Witty, as Sutton's grandmother, strutting her stoic English stuff. The main reason to watch this is for Gene Tierney, who is as beautiful and charming as ever.

Michael O'Keefe William Wellman directs this movie evocative of the early 1940's. In Arizona desert land is the secluded Thunder Bird airbase. Young Americans, British and Chinese are fliers in training. A veteran WWI pilot, Steve Brit(Preston Foster)volunteers to train these young fliers to take their part in WWII. Peter Stackhouse(John Sutton)is one of the trainees that is full of determination, but has a problem with motion sickness every time he goes up. Plus Stackhouse is competing for the affections of a young woman(Gene Tierney)that is Brit's old flame. The in-flight photography is probably before its time. Also in the cast: Jack Holt, Dame May Witty, Reginald Denny, Ted North and Richard Haydin.