It's 1918 and the war is being waged on the battlefields of France -- and over those battlefields too. Richard Dix wants no part of it. However, his girl friend, the cute and saucy Elizabeth Allen, shames him into enlisting, and he becomes a fighter pilot in the U.S. Army Air Corpe and is sent overseas, where he is soon joined by Allen as a nurse. In his first combat mission, he flies as part of the squadron, manages to get on the six o'clock position of a "Heinie" but can't bring himself to pull the trigger on his machine guns. His superior officer, Ralph Bellamy, chews him out.
On a later flight, after watching a friend being shot down, he become animated and scores his first "kill." And, actually, he feels pretty good about when he thinks it over. He shoots down numerous other Heinies and his score creeps up until it's about 40. (Historically, Eddie Rickenbacker was the highest scoring American ace with 26 aerial victories.) By now, Dix has begun to enjoy his job and has a sneaky tactic whereby he leaves the squadron and pulls up into a position that puts his airplane between the enemy and the sun, thus blinding the Heinies to his attack. In World War II, we accused the Japanese of being sneaky for doing the same thing. (You can ignore that gloss if you want.)
Meanwhile, his commanding officer, Ralph Bellamy, is getting furious. In not playing with the team, Dix has lessened its strength by one airplane, and all for his own self aggrandizement. "You'll do as you're told -- and that's an order!", or words to the same effect. But does Dix do it? Are you kidding? He's not about to submerge his identity, his prowess, into that of his squadron.
And he's still up there, lingering around in the vicinity of the sun, when a Heinie plane flies over the base and drops a message about a squadron member who had been shot down and captured, reassuring the boys that the prisoner is alive and doing well Then Dix dives out of the sun and wrecks the German airplane with aplomb.
The Heinie had no chance to defend himself but somehow Dix's scalp has been grazed and he winds up in the hospital. His bed is next to that of a very young pilot who constantly moans in pain and begs for water. Dix tells him to shut up but learns from a nurse that the patient can't drink anything because he's been shot through the stomach and is dying. While listening to the wounded boy Dix is stunned to learn that this is the Heinie pilot he'd just shot down, only a cadet with few hours flying time. Chagrin time for Dix. He accepts Bellamy's offer of an instructor's job back in the states but when taunted by some of his squadron mates, he decides to regress and go back to killing.
The only problem is that once in the air, again at a Heinie's six, he can't bring himself to pull the trigger. He and his cute and saucy girl friend are finally together, hugging each other decorously among the wildflowers and dreaming of a home and four children.
It's an anti-war movie from 1933, with World War I safely behind the audience. Nobody's performance stands out especially, nor does anyone's performance torpedo the movie. There is some genuine flight footage and a lot of model work. There's little ambiguity about a defeat. Just about everyone who is downed does a nose dive into the earth but -- this being 1933 -- there are not yet bouquets of exploding fireballs with each mishap.
The moral evolution of Dix's character is kind of interesting and I rather enjoyed it for all its primitive techniques. I liked it too because it SHOWS us how to dislike war without a single sermon being preached. Not that I mind the pep talks that show up so often in movies about war but they're usually so unoriginal, so filled with clichés. It's not often we hear anything like "when the blast of war blows in our ears, then imitate the action of the tiger."
