A story of 3 young men taking pre-war Air Cadet training. U.S. Army recruiting film.I'm so happy that I was finally able to see it. It is a true work of art that in my opinion is one of the great films of Hollywood's golden age. It's beautifully filmed with great flying sequences and plenty of stars . Most importantly it was Veronica's first big Hollywood production. She is a breathtaking vision of beauty in this picture, and her acting is superb despite all the pressures that she must have dealt with. Imagine how it must have felt to have a starring role for the first time among such acting heavyweights as Ray Milland and William Holden!
It is well known that this is when Veronica developed her tough "shell" in order to cope with it all. There were many difficulties. She was nervous, and had problems with the director Mitchell Leisen. She was also newly married to John Detlie, and desperately missed him while shooting this film hundreds of miles away in Texas. In fact she was so distraught over differences with Leisen that she drove off an embankment and broke her toes while secretly fleeing to reunite with her new husband. After some coaxing she was convinced to return to Texas and finish the filming. Veronica's character is the bad girl type who just so happens to be a cabaret singer as well. You have to wait a while before she finally appears in the film, but when she does it's spectacular.
Before I saw this film Stephen O'Brien, who's writing a new book about Veronica Lake, described her appearance to me as follows: "It looks like her dress was poured over her". I couldn't have put it better myself. This film is a must-see for all Veronica Lake fans.
Author: Randall Dumas (Hartford, Connecticut, USA)A juicy femme fatale role. You have to love the spunkiness of Lakes character in this movie. She is ballsy and annoying, but cute and charming too.
You can easily see how her charm captured hearts and heads, having those indefinable qualities that make true stars.
There's an educational feel to the movie in both how the opening runs through a simulated air attack on LA to test the flack guns, the people's ability to perform a blackout and then later training pilots how to fly.
It's a very functional movie at the start but throws in a courtroom scene, a naïve comic relief and a plot that rewinds to show the events leading up to the court drama.
The mood lightens as we follow 3 fresh recruits through basic training with some pratfalls and serious disasters.
"What's the matter.. haven't you seen a bomber before?"
~Carolyn Bartlett
"Never with landing gear like that"
~Jeff Young
Lake plays the confident, fiery and slightly predatory night club singer who is on tour with her band and gets entangled with the lives of our recruits; causing dramas of her own. Her side character is given short shrift at first with lots hinted from her past and during time-skips of the guys training. The latter part of the movie is driven by her machinations and once again manages some fine dramatic acting.
The sappy comedy and flag waving is strangely at odds with the stilted public information feel of the opening. The structure is familiar and formulaic but interestingly our raw recruits aren't completely brave or heroic; they are each flawed but decent enough to support each other. I assumed the point is that during wartime people are drafted into positions they wouldn't otherwise be in and despite that they do their best. While that is on message it does feel a bit more honest.
Notes:
Watching effects in old movies is always fascinating. Seeing a miniature having the lights blacked-out for the air-raid and having paper blow upwards during a parachute scene. Simple and effective practical effects. One thing I love is fire in older movies.. it's the most basic special effect, set something on fire and have actors run around it. You can use depth of field to make them look close than they are but it's still dangerous and real.
Lake:
She does some great miming during the singing sections and her initial scenes all work superbly as she exudes confidence but, oddly, some of her later dramatic scenes feel stilted. Filmed out of sequence? Inexperience? Direction? who knows but for a first major role she does enough to carry her part.
