This was SO MUCH better than I expected! Firstly, I thought it had been made about 10 years after it actually was made, so was VERY PLEASED to see Errol Flynn in "Serious Honey" mode, rather than "Aging Alcoholic Ex-Star" mode, very nice. Niven, of course, never stopped being a honey, and even Rathbone was quite handsome and charming at this time. So three cheers for the eye candy!

But the story was good too. Although I have to say here that I watched it with Mr. Otter, AKA Historian-On-A-Stick.

Here's a sample:

(movie starts with title card: France, 1915. A biplane is heading toward the camera. Two machine guns are mounted on the nose with the pilot firing them at the camera.)

Mr. Otter: That's not right! They didn't have their planes set up to do that until 1916!

(some plot goes by. We see the landing field.)

Mr. Otter: Those are all Nieuports! The Brits didn't have Nieuports!

Okay, that's enough. Needless to say, watching war movies with Historian-on-a-Stick is quite the education...

And astute fan GATADD has just pointed out that the Brits actually did have Nieuports. So here we see that Mr. Otter's brain is now turning to cheese...

But we both enjoyed this one. Sure, there were some very predictable situations, but it was well written and acted, and a lot of fun to watch. Everyone gets a chance to steal the limelight, and the ending is satisfying.

Actually, so many of the scenes take place on the ground, in the headquarters where the men eat, sleep and drink that I thought maybe it was a stage play with air footage added...it would have worked well as one, but no, it was an original screenplay. Niven, Rathbone and Flynn are at the top of their forms in this excellent view of the WWI Air War.