Hell's Angels (1930)

Brothers Monte and Ray leave Oxford to join the Royal Flying Corps. Ray loves Helen; Helen enjoys an affair with Monte; before they leave on their mission over Germany they find her in still another man's arms.

Directors:

Howard Hughes, Edmund Goulding (uncredited)

Writers:

Marshall Neilan (story), Joseph Moncure March (story)

Stars:

Ben Lyon, James Hall, Jean Harlow

Nominated for 1 Oscar.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Ben Lyon	...	Monte Rutledge
James Hall	...	Roy Rutledge
Jean Harlow	...	Helen
John Darrow	...	Karl Armstedt
Lucien Prival	...	Baron Von Kranz
Frank Clarke	...	Lt. von Bruen
Roy Wilson	...	Baldy Maloney
Douglas Gilmore	...	Capt. Redfield
Jane Winton	...	Baroness Von Kranz
Evelyn Hall	...	Lady Randolph
William B. Davidson	...	Staff Major
Wyndham Standing	...	RFC Squadron Commander
Lena Malena	...	Gretchen - Waitress
Marian Marsh	...	Girl Selling Kisses (as Marilyn Morgan)
Carl von Haartman	...	Zeppelin Commander (as Carl Von Haartman)

Storyline

Two brothers attending Oxford enlist with the RAF when World War I breaks out. Roy and Monte Rutledge have very different personalities. Monte is a freewheeling womanizer, even with his brother's girlfriend Helen. He also proves to have a yellow streak when it comes to his Night Patrol duties. Roy is made of strong moral fiber and attempts to keep his brother in line. Both volunteer for an extremely risky two man bombing mission for different reasons. Monte wants to lose his cowardly reputation and Roy seeks to protect his brother. Their assignment to knock out a strategic German munitions facility is a booming success, but with a squadron of fighters bearing down on them afterwards, escape seems unlikely.

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Plot Keywords:

femme fatale | profanity | profanity in title | oxford | munitions | 

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Taglines:

Thrilling battle scenes... a timeless love story.

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Genres:

Drama | War

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Certificate:

Passed

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English German French

Release Date:

15 November 1930 (USA)

Also Known As:

Les anges de l'enfer

Filming Locations:

Glendale Grand Central Air Terminal - Grandview Avenue, Glendale, California, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$3,950,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

The Caddo Company

Technical Specs

Runtime:

127 min 96 min (re-release)

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Sound System)

Color:

Black and White (tinted) (some sequences) Color (2-strip Technicolor) (some sequences)

Aspect Ratio:

1.20 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The entire movie had been filmed as a silent, minus a soundtrack, by Howard Hughes in 1928. Greta Nissen had the role played later by Jean Harlow. When sound equipment became available, Hughes decided to re-shoot the whole film as a talkie.

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Quotes

Helen: Would you be shocked if I put on something more comfortable?

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Connections

Referenced in Où sont les rêves de jeunesse? (1932)

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Soundtracks

Sailing, Sailing Over the Bounding Main
(uncredited)
Written by Godfrey Marks
Performed by Ben Lyon

User Reviews

Still a great movie!

Having just watched my VHS of this and wondering if it was out on DVD yet, I came to the IMDB to check and saw a comment about how hackneyed and awful this movie was, with the worst traits of the silent movies...lol! For those who don't know, this WAS a silent movie, and Hughes took so long trying to perfect the aerial sequences that sound came along, so then he had to try to rework everything else into sound, delaying things even further. Hughes was a "bit" of a perfectionist, ala Chaplin with "City Lights" and for every wonderful thing that does, it creates dozens of others you have to deal with as well... My favorite story of the making of this movie (recalling across 30 years from a book by Donald Dwiggins called "The Stunt Pilots" involved Paul Mantz (one of the lead pilots, later to die making "Flight of the Phoenix" after being the king of the Hollywood pilots for over 30 years) and Jean Harlow waiting in an airport restaurant for Hughes to fly in from somewhere and Mantz placing a nickel Coca-Cola bottle under a table leg before Hughes arrived and telling Harlow to "watch this". Hughes arrives for the meeting and being the perfectionist but also a bit ?, he never says anything about the table, never looks under it, but spends the whole lunch trying to eat with one hand and hold the table level with the other....