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Cities Stocks Weather Movies Coupons Travel Blogs Health Horoscope Maps ASIA EUROPE Classifieds Yellow Pages| Hell\'s Angels | |
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| Directed by | Howard Hughes |
| Produced by | Howard Hughes |
| Written by | Harry Behn Howard Estabrook |
| Starring | Jean Harlow Ben Lyon James Hall |
| Cinematography | Tony Gaudio Harry Perry |
| Distributed by | United Artists |
| Release date(s) | 1930 |
| Running time | 127 min. |
| Country |  United States
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| Language | English |
| Budget | $3,950,000 |
| IMDb profile | |
Hell\'s Angels is a 1930 American film directed by Howard Hughes.
In 1929, aviation mogul Howard Hughes, fresh off the Oscar nomination for his film The Racket, decided to make his next film about the combat pilots of World War I and their "magnificent airplanes" as he called them. Hughes poured money into the production, which he named Hell\'s Angels, filling it with death-defying aerial stunts, international locations and scenes in Multicolor (print by Technicolor and the Handschiegl Color Process) all of which worked to eventually make the production cost $3.95 million.Hells Angels Production Costs Retrieved: 23 February 2008. Robertson 2001, p. 33.
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Roy and Monte Rutledge are very different British brothers studying at Oxford together at the outset of World War I. Mild-mannered Roy is in love with and idealizes the wayward Helen, played by Jean Harlow. Monte, on the other hand, is a free-wheeling womanizer who can\'t refuse any woman\'s advances, including Helen\'s. A German student by the name of Karl is best friends to both. After the outbreak of World War I, Karl is recruited into the German Air Force and the two British brothers enlist in the Royal Flying Corps; Roy enthusiastically as a sense of duty and Monte doing so only to get a kiss from a girl at the recruiting station. After their training, Roy finally introduces Monte to Helen, who seduces Monte and then is found in the arms of another man the next day, which devastates Roy.
Meanwhile, Karl is stationed on a zeppelin that is flying over London for an attack high above the clouds. Karl is the marksman as he is lowered below the cloud-line in a pod, but because of his love for England he directs the zeppelin over a pond on a farm and bombs that instead, but before his superiors find out, the RAF is summoned, including Roy and Monte, to shoot down the zeppelin. Unbeknownst to them, Karl dies in the ensuing battle. The incident badly frightens Monte when his fighter aircraft is shot down during the attack.
Word gets around that Monte is developing a "yellow streak" and Roy is determined that his brother restore his reputation. In a fit of anger and under enormous pressure from Roy, the brothers both volunteer for a dangerous bombing mission over Germany. After the successful raid on a German munitions dump an aerial dogfight ensues, the brothers are shot down and captured. Given the option of a firing squad or treason, Monte\'s yellow streak fires up again and he plans on giving the enemy any information they want when the Germans promise that his life will be spared. Roy is forced to act so as to protect the thousands of British troops that would be harmed should they squeal, so he kills Monte and then refuses to divulge any information to his captors and is killed by the firing squad.
The film ends with footage of British soldiers successfully attacking the German front lines.
(in order of film credits)
| Actor | Role |
|---|---|
| Ben Lyon | Monte Rutledge |
| James Hall | Roy Rutledge |
| Jean Harlow (as Jean Harlowe) | 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 Melana (as Lena Malena) | Gretchen, waitress |
| Marian Marsh (as Marilyn Morgan) | Girl selling kisses |
| Carl von Haartman | Zeppelin commander |
| Ferdinand Schumann-Heink (as F. Schumann-Heink) | First Officer of zeppelin |
| Stephen Carr | Elliott |
| Thomas Carr | Pilot |
| J. Granville-Davis | Pilot |
| Hans Joby | Von Schlieben |
| Pat Somerset | Marryat |
| Wilhelm von Brincken | Von Richter |
Originally, the film was to star James Hall and Ben Lyon as Roy and Monte Rutledge, and Norwegian silent film star Greta Nissen as Helen, the female lead, and was to be directed by Marshall Neilan. Before the picture even began filming, Hughes\' overbearing production techniques forced Neilan to quit. Hughes took over the directing reins, assisted by Luther Reed. Midway through production, the advent of the sound motion picture came with the arrival of The Jazz Singer. Hughes incorporated the new technology into the half finished film, but the first casualty of the sound age became Greta Nissen and her Norwegian accent. He paid her for her work and cooperation and replaced her, because her accent would make her role as a British aristocrat ludicrous. The role was soon filled with a teenage up-and-coming star found by Hughes himself, Jean Harlow.
The two color scenes provide the only color glimpse of Harlow on film. During the shoot, Hughes designed many aerial stunts for the dogfighting scenes. He hired actual World War I aces to fly the stunt planes, but they reportedly refused to fly for the final scene. The aviator in Hughes came out and he flew the scene, getting the shot. As the pilots predicted, however, he crashed the aircraft, escaping with only minor injuries.
Three of the aviators were killed during production. Al Johnson crashed after hitting wires while landing at Caddo Field, near Van Nuys, California; C. K. Phillips crashed while delivering an S.E.5 fighter to the Oakland shooting location. Only mechanic Phil Jones died during filming; he failed to bail out before the crash of the German Gotha bomber.
Hell\'s Angels received its premiere at Grauman\'s Chinese Theatre on 24 May 1930. All the stars and makers of the film attended, as well as Charlie Chaplin with his girlfriend Georgia Hale, Buster Keaton, Dolores del Rio, Norma Talmadge, Mary Pickford, Billy Dove and Douglas Fairbanks. While Harlow, Lyon, and Hall received mixed reviews for their acting, Hughes was praised for his hard work on the filming and aircraft sequences. The film went into general release 15 November 1930 in the USA and did quite well at the box office, earning nearly $8 million, about double the production and advertising costs. This is equivalent to around $90 million in today\'s (2008) money.
Like many other classic films, Hell\'s Angels has been re-released in video and DVD formats by Universal Studios, who in later years acquired the rights to the film.
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