Only Angels Have Wings *****

Back in the 1940s, when I was a boozy, thinner version of Roger Ebert, my most famous review was regarding Chaplin's first talkie called Monsieur Verdoux. Every critic hated it and it tanked at the box office. I became the film's John the Baptist and kept writing about it and kept calling the other critics idiots and kept pushing the film, which I thought was one of the greatest of all time.

The movie is now considered a classic. Which would make me right...again. And to all my collegues at the time, RIDE ON THIS!!! I'm looking at you, Bosley Crowthers. Go screw. The New York Times should hire you back, just so they could fire you again. No talent hack.

Okay, back on point. In the case of the movie here, I'm 60 years late, but not too late to work my magic, so I'm picking up the baton now for Only Angels Have Wings. I've never read anything bad about it. It's just ignored.

I missed this one when it originally premiered, so the first time I saw this movie was a few years ago when my back started acting up at about 3 a.m. one night and I couldn't sleep, so I started flipping though the channels and there it was. There were no red flags here, just all black and white, down and dirty, Cary-Grant-Thomas-Mitchell-Howard-Hawks-1930s goodness. It was just...just...just great. That's the only word I can come up with for it. I kept thinking over and over again, "why have I never seen this before?"

Onto the plot, Bonnie Lee (Jean Arthur) gets stuck at this South American airport where she meets two cargo pilots. Both take her out to dinner and start working on her. Before dinner is served one gets called away to make a drop off. This is where we meet Geoff Carter, the boss, and Cary Grant is one of his better ones. Cynical, dark, funny with that screw you look that is lost in many of his light comedies, he's just great (there's that phrase again) here.

As far as business goes for Cary, there is one problem, actually two. First of all, the planes have to get over the Andies to go anywhere. Second, the planes aren't good enough to do it. So the pilots have to fly virtually blind though fog to get to this small pass between the mountains. It's almost a suicide mission, but these guys are so good they do it over and over.

Bonnie's friend almost makes it. He probably would have if it took it around one more time, but he was in a rush to see Bonnie. These scenes is a white-knuckler and a perfect example of less is more and greatness through editing. Hawks cuts from the pilot's POV, to the plane, to the look of tension on the faces of those guiding him in, over and over again. It's brilliant work and standard operating procedure for Hawks.

After the pilot's death, the guys all eat and sing because what else are you going to do - cry? If you did that each time someone died then it's over. Bonnie doesn't get it. Geoff's friend Kid (Thomas Mitchell doing his thing) tries to explain it to her, but she can't and won't grasp it. I'm not a big Jean Arthur fan and her role is a plot device here to introduce you to everyone and push everything along. It works.

Geoff can't mourn because he needs a new pilot. One died and he had to ground Kid due to bad eyesight. Enter Bat Kilgallen (Richard Barthelmess) to fill that void. Barthelmess was usually a leading man back in the early 30s, but he was starting to slip at this point. He did some nice work here though.

There's one problem with Bat. Geoff often forgets a name, but he never forgets a face. Bat's real name is MacPherson and he was involved in an accident where he jumped out of a plane and left his mechanic to die. That mechanic was Kid's brother. After Geoff keeps his crew from lynching MacPherson, he agrees to keep him on only for suicide missions. The first was to get a doctor to over the Andies through pea-soup fog to a dying boy. The second was to take a load of nitro to a destination over the mountains. Geoff called him off this mission because it got too dangerous, but Bat was willing to go. This proved his courage.

At the end there was one more suicide mail delivery. It had to go within the hour in order for the company to survive by getting a huge contract with the US Postal Service. Geoff wanted to go, but Bonnie shot him in the arm to prevent it. It had to be Bat one last time and Kid volunteered to go as his engineer. I'll stop there.

This is Grant's and Hawk's best work and that's saying a lot. The locale is great. The drama is built in with a beautiful Jules Furthman script. There's back story up the wazoo here. All the players have it running on all cylinders. I don't know who the editor was, but this deserved an Oscar just for the flight scenes. It was 95 minutes and it felt like a sitcom. Was there any redeeming social value in this movie? Not really. Don't care. It was fun.

This one's a little tough to find. Might need Amazon here, but it won't be too expensive and it's worth it. Just a kick ass little movie.