Dive Bomber (1941)

User Rating:

6.5/10   

Director:

Michael Curtiz

Writers:

Frank Wead (story)
Frank Wead (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

30 August 1941 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

WINGS TO THE WIND...EYES TO THE SKIES! (original print media ad - all caps)

Plot:

A military surgeon teams with a ranking navy flyer to develop a high-altitude suit which will protect pilots from blacking out when they go into a steep dive.

Plot Keywords:

Blackout | Military | Flight Surgeon | Altitude Sickness | Flight School

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar.

Cast

Errol Flynn	...	Lt. Douglas S. 'Doug' Lee, MD
Fred MacMurray	...	Lt. Cmdr. Joe Blake, squadron commander
Ralph Bellamy	...	Lt. Cmdr. Lance Rogers, MD, Flight Surgeon
Alexis Smith	...	Mrs. Linda Fisher
Robert Armstrong	...	Art Lyons - aviation designer
Regis Toomey	...	Lt. Tim Griffin
Allen Jenkins	...	Corpsman 2nd Class 'Lucky' James
Craig Stevens	...	Pilot Trainee Anthony
Herbert Anderson	...	Lt. Markham MD - assigned to Norfolk
Moroni Olsen	...	Senior Surgeon at San Diego
Dennie Moore	...	Ex-wife of Lucky James
Louis Jean Heydt	...	Lt. Swede Larson
Cliff Nazarro	...	Corpsman - Lucky's fast-talking buddy

Runtime:

132 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound System)

Certification:

Argentina:Atp | Finland:S | USA:Approved (PCA #7199) | Australia:PG

Filming Locations:

Cabrillo National Monument, Point Loma, San Diego, California, USA

Company:

Warner Bros. Pictures

Trivia:

Jack Benny did a parody of this movie on his radio show which aired 10/26/1941

Goofs:

Errors in geography: The airfield used in the beginning of the movie was never identified, nor does it look like Ford Island which is used by the Navy. Eva Field was a Marine airfield near Pearl Harbor which it could have been. There are several Army airfields that it could also have been used.

Quotes:

Lt. Douglas S. 'Doug' Lee, MD: As far as I'm concerned, a woman is like an elephant. I like to look at them, but I don't want to own one.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Dive Bomber: Keep 'Em in the Air (2005) (V)

Soundtrack:

We Watch the Skyways

True Science or Hollywood Hokum?

Other posters have discussed the supposed 'spy' story behind this film: That Errol Flynn attempted to get it made in Pensacola rather than San Diego because the Nazis for some reason wanted it that way. They've pointed out that in the studio days, an actor, even one with Flynn's stature, could hardly have dictated such a thing. Also the buildings shown appear to be in San Diego. Finally, the airplanes used in the film were already obsolete in 1941. The Pentagon would hardly have allowed anything the Nazis and Japanese didn't already know about to be presented in the film, (and we probably didn't have any such thing at that point anyway).

And that last point intrigues me. This film allegedly presents the cutting edge of aeronautical medicine. Yet, if that's the case, the Pentagon would surely not have allowed Hollywood to present that, either. If the film had been made after the war, it would be more believable that this represented in some why the efforts of the heroic doctors and flyers to conquer black-out and high altitude sickness. But in 1941, the only thing that could have been presented was old science, speculation or Hollywood hokum, which this is surely a mixture of. That makes the film, which is certainly entertaining, rather meaningless as a semi-documentary on the subject.

On the subject of Hollywood's obsession with comic relief, this is something that mars old movies to modern eyes. I'm sure there are things in our films today that will someday be considered an embarrassment but these moronic 'sidekicks' are about as funny these days as a mistral show. In this film, the constant return to Allen Jenkins and his problems with his wife are a maddening intrusion into the drama of the film. Particularly inexcusable is the interruption of the scene where Regis Toomey is about to be told that he can no longer fly and we sequey to Jenkins again, then go back and pick up Toomey's story. Did 'Spig' Wead really write Jenkins' part into the script? I doubt it. (See my review of 'Hell Below' for another example of this type of cinematic butchery.)