Hell's Angels was the 1930 Howard Hugh's film that won the first Academy Award as best film. The version of the film I've linked has been remastered and colorized. Normally I dislike colorizing old black and white movies, but it works well in this instance.
The Hell's Angels was originally filmed as a silent film, but Al Jolson's introduction of sound to films led Howard Hugh to reshoot the film as a talky. Still, there is a lot of silent movie DNA in the film. Their body language and facial expressions can be exaggerated. Most notably the blocking for conversations can be somewhat odd, rather than doing an establishing shot and then cutting back and forth between the characters, they tend to just face each other at an uncomfortably close distance as they talk in a static shot.
The story centers on two upper-class British brothers. Roy is upright and very proper and is infatuated with his girlfriend Helen, who he prizes because he thinks she is pure and demure. On the other hand, his brother Monte is a bit of a bounder, who drinks too much and chases any skirt he sees. Hilariously, when we finally meet Helen (played by Jean Harlow) she turns out to be a completely over-the-top strumpet. Hmmm.., it appears Roy isn't the best judge of character. The film starts pre-WWI and follows them through their time in the RAF.
The above video is queued up to the start of one of its most famous sequences -- a Zepplin raid on London. The German Zepplin commander is adequately villainous, he's quite delighted when he thinks he's blown-up Trafalgar Square. When the English planes show-up he needs to lighten his dirigible to gain altitude and escape. Dropping his ballast and tossing spare equipment overboard isn't enough, so he orders some of his crew to jump off the ship and they, being good Hun automatons, oblige him by uttering 'for the Kaiser and the Fatherland' before jumping through the open bomb bay doors. Oh, the humanity.
There is another large set piece battle near the end of the film. Roy and Monte bomb a German ammo dump in a captured German bomber. As they try to escape the Red Baron and his Flying Circus spot them and give chase. A squadron of British planes arrives to try to cover their escape and a huge dogfight ensues. They used 137 pilots for film and the final dogfights scenes between the captured German bomber and the two squadrons is spectacular.
Should you watch it? The film is nearly 100 years old and so there are many differences in the presentation and mores of the day. One big example is that there is no score to the soundtrack, it is all dialog and ambient sounds. The film is also pre-code, so it is not as prudish as later films; Jean Harlow's dress that she wears to the party should have been enough to convince Roy that Helen may not be the delicate flower he imagines her to be. Yet, the filming and storytelling methods work nicely so I would say it is well worth a viewing.
The YouTube version I linked to above has a blizzard of ads, if you prefer to skip that you can buy ad-free versions it.
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