''The Dawn Patrol'' is a 1930 American
pre-Code
Pre-Code Hollywood was the brief era in the Cinema of the United States, American film industry between the widespread adoption of sound in film in 1929LaSalle (2002), p. 1. and the enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code censorshi ...
World War I film starring
Richard Barthelmess
Richard Semler Barthelmess (May 9, 1895 – August 17, 1963) was an American film actor, principally of the Hollywood silent era. He starred opposite Lillian Gish in D. W. Griffith's '' Broken Blossoms'' (1919) and ''Way Down East'' (1920) and ...
and
Douglas Fairbanks Jr
Douglas Elton Fairbanks Jr., (December 9, 1909 – May 7, 2000) was an American actor, producer and decorated naval officer of World War II. He is best known for starring in such films as ''The Prisoner of Zenda'' (1937), ''Gunga Din'' (1939) a ...
. It was directed by
Howard Hawks
Howard Winchester Hawks (May 30, 1896December 26, 1977) was an American film director, producer and screenwriter of the classic Hollywood era. Critic Leonard Maltin called him "the greatest American director who is not a household name."
A v ...
, a former
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
flight instructor, who even flew in the film as a German pilot in an uncredited role.
''The Dawn Patrol'' won the
Academy Award for Best Story
The Academy Award for Best Story was an Academy Award given from the beginning of the Academy Awards until 1956. This award can be a source of confusion for modern audiences, given its co-existence with the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenpl ...
for
John Monk Saunders
John Monk Saunders (November 22, 1897 – March 11, 1940) was an American novelist, screenwriter, and film director.
Early life and career
Born in Hinckley, Minnesota, to Robert C. Saunders and Nannie Monk Saunders, his family (6 children) move ...
. It was subsequently
remade in 1938 with the same title, and the original was then renamed ''Flight Commander'' and released later as part of the
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. D ...
film catalog.
Plot
During
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, the pilots of an
RFC
RFC may refer to:
Computing
* Request for Comments, a memorandum on Internet standards
* Request for change, change management
* Remote Function Call, in SAP computer systems
* Rhye's and Fall of Civilization, a modification for Sid Meier's Civ ...
squadron deal with the stress of combat primarily through nightly bouts of heavy drinking. The two aces of the squadron's "A Flight", Courtney and Scott, have come to hate the commanding officer, Brand, blaming him for sending new recruits directly into combat in inferior aircraft.
Unknown to them, Brand has been arguing continually with higher command to allow practice time for the new pilots, but command is desperate to maintain
air superiority
Aerial supremacy (also air superiority) is the degree to which a side in a conflict holds control of air power over opposing forces. There are levels of control of the air in aerial warfare. Control of the air is the aerial equivalent of c ...
and orders them into combat as soon as they arrive. Brand is so disliked by the two he cannot even easily join the men for the nightly partying, drinking alone and clearly breaking under the strain. The tension grows worse when an elite ''
Luftstreitkrafte'' squadron led by "von Richter" takes up position just across the front lines from them.
After losing several of the squadron's veteran pilots, the ranks become increasingly made up of new recruits who have no chance against the German veterans. Von Richter issues a taunt that Courtney and Scott answer by attacking the Germans' airdrome in defiance of orders from Brand not to go up against them. Brand gets revenge when he is recalled to headquarters and Courtney is made squadron commander. Courtney quickly learns the misery that Brand endured when four patrols a day are ordered and his pleas not to send green men are ignored.
Scott and Courtney have a falling out when Scott's younger brother, one of the new replacements, is immediately ordered on a mission. He is killed flying the dawn patrol. Brand returns with orders for what amounts to a suicide mission far behind enemy lines. Courtney is forbidden to fly the mission, so Scott angrily volunteers. Courtney gets him drunk and flies off in his stead. He shoots down von Richter returning from the successful mission, but is killed by another German pilot. Scott becomes squadron commander and reads orders to his new replacements.
Cast
*
Richard Barthelmess
Richard Semler Barthelmess (May 9, 1895 – August 17, 1963) was an American film actor, principally of the Hollywood silent era. He starred opposite Lillian Gish in D. W. Griffith's '' Broken Blossoms'' (1919) and ''Way Down East'' (1920) and ...
as Dick Courtney
*
Douglas Fairbanks Jr. as Douglas Scott
*
Neil Hamilton as Major Brand
*
Frank McHugh
Francis Curry McHugh (May 23, 1898 – September 11, 1981) was an American stage, radio, film and television actor.
Early years
Born in Homestead, Pennsylvania, of Irish descent, McHugh came from a theatrical family. His parents, Edward A. ...
as Flaherty
*
Clyde Cook as Bott
*
James Finlayson as Field Sergeant
*
Gardner James
Gardner James (1903–1953) was an American film actor.
After some stage experience with George Arliss, he entered silent films in 1922. While he once played a lead role, he was often billed third in the cast.Katchmer p. 177 He was married to the ...
as Ralph Hollister
*
William Janney
William Janney (born Russell Dixon Janney, February 15, 1908 – December 22, 1992) was an American actor who appeared in 39 films between 1929 and 1937.
He was the son of author and theatrical producer Russell Janney,(28 December 1940)William J ...
as Gordon Scott
*
Edmund Breon
Edmund Breon (born Iver Edmund de Breon MacLaverty; 12 December 1882 – 24 June 1953) was a Scottish film and stage actor. He appeared in more than 130 films between 1907 and 1952.
Life and career
Born in Hamilton, South Lanarkshire, Br ...
as Lieutenant Phipps
Production
Casting
Although
Ronald Colman
Ronald Charles Colman (9 February 1891 – 19 May 1958) was an English-born actor, starting his career in theatre and silent film in his native country, then immigrating to the United States and having a successful Hollywood film career. He wa ...
was originally to be cast as the lead actor in ''The Dawn Patrol'', Barthelmess was offered by the studio.
Paramount Publix Corp. also loaned Actor Neil Hamilton and writer Seton I. Miller for the film.
Filming
Principal photography began in February 1930, with exteriors shot at the Metropolitan Airport in Van Nuys, Newhall, and Sherwood Forrest in Southern California.
In the midst of production, the studio was sued by
Howard Hughes
Howard Robard Hughes Jr. (December 24, 1905 – April 5, 1976) was an American business magnate, record-setting pilot, engineer, film producer, and philanthropist, known during his lifetime as one of the most influential and richest people in th ...
, through the Caddo Company and the Gainsborough Corporation. The suit alleged that ''The Dawn Patrol'' plagiarized his ''
Hell's Angels'' (1930) production, also in production.
["Notes."](_blank)
''Turner Classic Movies.'' Retrieved: August 11, 2012. The lawsuit resulted in ''The Dawn Patrol'' being rushed through post-production in order to be in theaters before Hughes' competing film. In late 1930,
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. D ...
, owners of First National Pictures, won the suit. Another contentious issue later arose when both Howard Hawks and John Monk Saunders claimed ownership of the original idea behind the film. Hawks claimed he based the film on his own recollections while Saunders insisted that the screenplay was derived from the interviews of other veterans of World War I. In a deposition, Saunders said it was based on stories from pilots known by himself (during his time as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford) and by writer
Irvin S. Cobb.
Aircraft
Hawks attempted to create a realistic atmosphere, and assembled a variety of contemporary aircraft in a film squadron to shoot the flying scenes for ''The Dawn Patrol''. He primarily used rebuilt
Nieuport 28
The Nieuport 28 C.1, a French biplane fighter aircraft flown during World War I, was built by Nieuport and designed by Gustave Delage. Owing its lineage to the successful line of sesquiplane fighters that included the Nieuport 17, the Nieu ...
s as the aircraft for the British squadron, and
Travel Air 4000
The Travel Air 2000/3000/4000 (originally, the Model A, Model B and Model BH were open-cockpit biplane aircraft produced in the United States in the late 1920s by the Travel Air Manufacturing Company. During the period from 1924–1929, T ...
s (reconfigured for films and popularly known as "
Wichita Fokker
Fokker was a Dutch aircraft manufacturer named after its founder, Anthony Fokker. The company operated under several different names. It was founded in 1912 in Berlin, Germany, and became famous for its fighter aircraft in World War I. In 1919 ...
s")
["The Plane."](_blank)
''FlyWithTheBarnstormer.com''. Retrieved: April 1, 2009.["Le Wichita Fokker" (in French).](_blank)
''Aeromovies - films d'aviation''. Retrieved: April 1, 2009. This site includes numerous photographs of the type in film livery. for German fighters. Neither was truly representative of the 1915 era that was portrayed. Other aircraft in his small fleet included
Standard J-1
The Standard J is a two-seat basic trainer two-bay biplane produced in the United States from 1916 to 1918, powered by a four-cylinder inline Hall-Scott A-7a engine. It was constructed from wood with wire bracing and fabric covering. The J-1 ...
s for shots of entire squadrons, some of which were blown up in explosions, and
Waterman–
Boeing
The Boeing Company () is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, telecommunications equipment, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and product ...
C biplanes for German aircraft destroyed in crashes.
The scene in which Scott takes off with Courtney clinging to the wing switches to a shot of a
Travel Air 4U Speedwing fitted with a round
cowl
A cowl is an item of clothing consisting of a long, hooded garment with wide sleeves, often worn by monks.
Originally it may have referred simply to the hooded portion of a cloak. In contemporary usage, however, it is distinguished from a clo ...
over its Comet engine to resemble the Nieuports. Stunt pilots included Leo Nomis, Rupert Symes Macalister, Frank Tomick and Roy Wilson.
["Aviation Films - D."](_blank)
''Aerofiles.com''. Retrieved: April 1, 2009. Several
Thomas-Morse S-4
The Thomas-Morse S-4 Scout was an American biplane advanced trainer, operated by the United States Army and the United States Navy. Dubbed the "Tommy" by pilots who flew it, the aircraft became the favorite single-seat training airplane produced ...
aircraft were used in the 1930 film. The S-4 was an American built fighter aircraft that did not see combat in World War I. Plentiful in 1930, the S-4s were becoming rare by the time the 1938 film was produced, hence the re-use of aircraft sequences from the original film. Some in-flight scenes with principal actors were staged with aircraft hoisted up by wires to a height of 25 feet. Stage hands then rocked the aircraft to simulate flight, but when one of the wires snapped, on screen, Barthelmess appeared startled, unaware that an accident had occurred, and simply thought the swaying aircraft was part of the scene.
Reception
Box Office
According to Warner Bros records the film earned $1,061,000 domestically and $563,000 foreign making it the studio's third biggest hit of the year after ''Gold Diggers of Broadway'' and ''Sally''.
Critical reception
Studio brass was extremely reluctant to back the release because Hawks had insisted on realistic dialogue that was at odds with the dramatic tone that executives had demanded. Nonetheless, ''The Dawn Patrol'' was an "instant success", one of the studio's most profitable films that year.
Later critical reviews noted that the "anti-war" message was more prevalent in the original film, although due to the re-titling of ''Flight Commander'', the film is often not as well known as its 1938 remake. The flying sequences, one of the hallmarks of the film, were vividly shot and were easily integrated into the later remake.
Awards and honors
Despite the controversy over the origin of the screenplay for ''The Dawn Patrol'', in 1931, Saunders won an Academy Award for Best Writing, Screenplay.
Preservation status
When the
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. D ...
film catalog was sold, ''The Dawn Patrol'' aired on television and from
Associated Artists Productions
Associated Artists Productions, Inc. (a.a.p.) later known as United Artists Associated was an American distributor of theatrical feature films and subjects for television. Associated Artists Productions was the copyright owner of the ''Popeye ...
, in its retitled form, as ''Flight Commander''. The original title frames were discarded and the redrawn titles are on all known prints of the film.
Remake
The film was
remade in 1938 as a vehicle for
Errol Flynn
Errol Leslie Thomson Flynn (20 June 1909 – 14 October 1959) was an Australian-American actor who achieved worldwide fame during the Golden Age of Hollywood. He was known for his romantic swashbuckler roles, frequent partnerships with Olivia ...
, replacing Barthelmess in the lead, rather than reissuing the original as planned.
David Niven
James David Graham Niven (; 1 March 1910 – 29 July 1983) was a British actor, soldier, memoirist, and novelist. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance as Major Pollock in ''Separate Tables'' (1958). Niven's other roles ...
took Fairbanks, Jr.'s role and
Basil Rathbone
Philip St. John Basil Rathbone MC (13 June 1892 – 21 July 1967) was a South African-born English actor. He rose to prominence in the United Kingdom as a Shakespearean stage actor and went on to appear in more than 70 films, primarily costume ...
was cast in the role played by Neil Hamilton.
Much of the flying sequences from the 1930 film, with several of the close-ups of the fighter aircraft, were re-edited verbatim into the 1938 movie, so as to save expense without having to search for or build new World War I era aircraft, but also due to the original sequences being expertly shot by Ernest Haller and Elmer Dyer.
[Smith, Richard Harland]
"Articles."
''Turner Classic Movies.'' Retrieved: August 11, 2012. All of the film of the munitions depot explosions were also edited into the remake with no changes. When the 1938 version was released, the 1930 film was retitled ''Flight Commander'', Saunder's original title for the project, to differentiate it from its
1938 remake.
[Pendo 1985, p. 107.]
In popular culture
A novelization of the 1930 film, also titled ''The Dawn Patrol'', was written by Guy Fowler and published by
Grosset & Dunlap
Grosset & Dunlap is a New York City-based publishing house founded in 1898.
The company was purchased by G. P. Putnam's Sons in 1982 and today is part of Penguin Random House through its subsidiary Penguin Group.
Today, through the Penguin Gro ...
in 1930. Warner Bros. also released two
Looney Tunes
''Looney Tunes'' is an American Animated cartoon, animated comedy short film series produced by Warner Bros. starting from 1930 to 1969, concurrently with its partner series ''Merrie Melodies'', during the golden age of American animation. cartoons parodying this film.
Bosko
Bosko is an animated cartoon character created by animators Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising. Bosko was the first recurring character in Leon Schlesinger's cartoon series and was the star of 39 ''Looney Tunes'' shorts released by Warner Bros. He ...
appeared in ''
Dumb Patrol
''Dumb Patrol'' is a 1964 Warner Bros. ''Looney Tunes'' cartoon short directed by Gerry Chiniquy. It was released on January 18, 1964, and stars Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam. Director Gerry Chiniquy was a longtime animator in Friz Freleng's unit. ...
'' (1931) and 33 years later, in 1964,
Bugs Bunny
Bugs Bunny is an animated cartoon character created in the late 1930s by Leon Schlesinger Productions (later Warner Bros. Cartoons) and voiced originally by Mel Blanc. Bugs is best known for his starring roles in the '' Looney Tunes'' and '' ...
and
Yosemite Sam
Yosemite Sam ( /joʊˈsɛmɪti/ ''yoh-SEM-ih-tee'') is a cartoon character in the ''Looney Tunes'' and ''Merrie Melodies'' series of short films produced by Warner Bros. His name is taken from Yosemite National Park. He is an adversary of Bugs ...
appeared in a second cartoon spoof that was also called ''
Dumb Patrol
''Dumb Patrol'' is a 1964 Warner Bros. ''Looney Tunes'' cartoon short directed by Gerry Chiniquy. It was released on January 18, 1964, and stars Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam. Director Gerry Chiniquy was a longtime animator in Friz Freleng's unit. ...
''.
References
Explanatory notes
Citations
Bibliography
* Dolan, Edward F. Jr. ''Hollywood Goes to War''. London: Bison Books, 1985. .
* Evans, Alun. ''Brassey's Guide to War Films''. Dulles, Virginia: Potomac Books, 2000. .
* Farmer, James A. "Hollywood's World War One Aviation Films." ''Air Classics'', Volume 24, no. 12, December 1988.
* Harwick, Jack and Ed Schnepf. "A Viewer's Guide to Aviation Movies". ''The Making of the Great Aviation Films'', General Aviation Series, Volume 2, 1989.
* Mayo, Mike. ''VideoHound's War Movies: Classic Conflict on Film''. Detroit: Visible Ink Press, 1999. .
* McCarthy, Todd. ''Howard Hawks: The Grey Fox of Hollywood''. New York: Grove Press, 2000. .
* Pendo, Stephen. ''Aviation in the Cinema''. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, 1985. .
External links
*
*
*
*
alternative lobby poster
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dawn Patrol, The
1930 films
1930s English-language films
1930 war films
American black-and-white films
American war films
Films directed by Howard Hawks
Films produced by Robert North
Films that won the Academy Award for Best Story
First National Pictures films
World War I aviation films
1930s American films