Flying Tigers (1942)

Capt. Jim Gordon's command of the famed American mercenary fighter group in China is complicated by the recruitment of an old friend who is a reckless hotshot.

Director:

David Miller

Writers:

Kenneth Gamet (screenplay), Barry Trivers (screenplay),

Stars:

John Wayne, John Carroll, Anna Lee

Nominated for 3 Oscars.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
John Wayne	...	Capt. Jim Gordon
John Carroll	...	Woody Jason
Anna Lee	...	Brooke Elliott
Paul Kelly	...	Hap Smith
Gordon Jones	...	Alabama Smith
Mae Clarke	...	Verna Bales
Addison Richards	...	Col. Lindsay
Edmund MacDonald	...	Blackie Bales
Bill Shirley	...	Dale
Tom Neal	...	Reardon
Malcolm 'Bud' McTaggart	...	McCurdy (as Malcolm 'Bud' McTaggart)
David Bruce	...	Lt. Barton
Chester Gan	...	Mike
Jimmie Dodd	...	McIntosh (as James Dodd)
Gregg Barton	...	Tex Norton

Storyline

Jim Gordon commands a unit of the famed Flying Tigers, the American Volunteer Group which fought the Japanese in China before America's entry into World War II. Gordon must send his outnumbered band of fighter pilots out against overwhelming odds while juggling the disparate personalities and problems of his fellow flyers. In particular, he must handle the difficulties created by a reckless hot-shot pilot named Woody Jason, who not only wants to fight a one-man war but to waltz off with Gordon's girlfriend.

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Plot Keywords:

china | pilot | american | fighter pilot | japanese | 

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Taglines:

NUNCA COMO HASTA AHORA SE FILMO LA GUERRA EL EL AIRE TAN CRUENTA, TAN REAL, TAN VIOLENTA! (original Argentine poster - all caps)

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Genres:

Action | Drama | War | Romance

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Certificate:

Approved

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

8 October 1942 (USA)

Also Known As:

De vliegende tijgers

Filming Locations:

Curtiss-Wright Aircraft Co., Buffalo, New York, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Republic Pictures (I)

Technical Specs

Runtime:

102 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound System)

Color:

Black and White (archive footage) Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

When John Carroll was introduced to a Tiger from Texas, he inquires, "Do you know the McNaught Sisters in Fort Worth?" This was an inside joke by screenwriter Barry Trivers. The McNaught Sisters - Mary, Ruth and Corinne - were actually from Fort Worth and were cousins of Florine McKinney, Trivers' former wife.

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Goofs

Noticeable air scoops on the P-40's top cowling are shown in scenes of the aircraft parked on the ground and during taxi. Up-close engine starting and flying sequences show a clean cowling, without the air scoops.

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Quotes

Jim Gordon: Don't try to win this war all by yourself.

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Connections

Featured in Raggedy Man (1981)

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Soundtracks

"Battle Hymn of the Republic"
(uncredited)
Music by William Steffe (1856)
Played as background at the end

User Reviews

Wayne Goes To War

John Wayne's first war film was one of his best, a solid actioner with Wayne giving great presence as the leader of a fighter squadron doing battle against the Japanese invader over the skies of China in the dark days before the U.S. entry into World War II.

Wayne plays Jim "Pappy" Gordon, a variation on the many flinty-commander-with-heart-of-gold characters he would play in films to follow like "Sands Of Iwo Jima" and "Fighting Seabees." Gordon is less flinty than most of them, maybe because his men are volunteers or maybe because his girlfriend Brooke (Anna Lee) is stationed on the same airbase. While the Japanese take their toll on his men, Gordon's toughest job may be keeping peace in his squadron when smug gloryhog Woody Jason (John Carroll) arrives.

When I first saw "Flying Tigers" as a boy, the on-screen gore made the strongest impression. In those days, before pay television, it was something to see a Japanese pilot grab his face, blood oozing through his fingers. Times have changed, of course, but one is still impressed by the well-rendered dogfight sequences, for which Ted Lydecker was nominated for an Oscar. Though it's troubling to be entertained by what amounts to real images of people getting killed, director David Miller manages to incorporate actual combat footage very well into battle sequences that alternate with Lydecker miniature work and shots of actors in their cockpits, better than the more acclaimed director Nicholas Ray later did in another Wayne air war film, "Flying Leathernecks."

"Flying Tigers" contains one key historical inaccuracy: While assembled in the months before Pearl Harbor, the Tigers didn't see action until December 20, 1941. This is an important caveat, but the inaccuracy allows for one of the very first and best examples of that classic movie cliché, where a dramatic scene ends with a glimpse of a desk calendar showing the date "Dec. 7." The scene that follows is one of those Wayne moments that resonated especially in theaters in 1942 and still packs a punch now: Pappy alone by a radio, standing expressionless while a cigarette smolders in his fingers, listening to President Roosevelt declare war.

Neither Wayne's iconographic stature or final victory against the Japanese were sure things when "Flying Tigers" came out in 1942; we tend to take more for granted and give films like this less credit. Wayne was 35 and not a real soldier, yet he came to define the war effort for many. Judging from the way some comments here attack him as a straw dog for present U.S. war policy in Iraq, Wayne's potency as a symbol remains undimmed.

Climbing off his P-40 after an early mission, Wayne is shown a row of bullet holes on his fuselage. "Termites," he says laconically, before striding away.

I give a lot of credit here to Miller, who knew what he had in Wayne before anyone else did, and uses the actor's terse authority to great effect. Miller was making propaganda, yes, but effectively and sensitively: We see Chinese children victimized by war, including one shot of a wounded child crying after a bombing clearly modeled on a famous war photo of the period. Unlike other wartime films which went heavy on ethnic stereotyping, the Japanese are seen as skilled, ruthless adversaries who require resolve to face down.

The film does lose altitude at the end, when Wayne goes off on a hare-brained bombing mission and Carroll has a "why-we-fight" epiphany that rings rather hollow. Maybe it's because he's playing a heel, but I find Carroll hard to take, with his Clark Gable mannerisms and the way he seems to always play to the camera rather than the other actors. There's also a little too much melodrama between Wayne and Lee that feels out of place in a war film.

But "Flying Tigers" has weathered the years better than most films of its kind, and is a historic landmark both for its effective action scenes and its pioneering use of Wayne as cultural touchstone. More than 60 years later, it still packs a punch.