REVIEWED BY WALTER ALBERT:         


THE EAGLE AND THE HAWK

THE EAGLE AND THE HAWK. Paramount, 1933. Fredric March, Cary Grant, Jack Oakie, Carole Lombard, Guy Standing, Forrester Harvey, Kenneth Howell, Leyland Hodgson, Virginia Hammond, Yorke Sherwood, Adrienne D’Ambricourt, Lane Chandler, Dennis O’Keefe. Screenplay by Bogart Rogers and Seton I. Miller, from the story “Death in the Morning” by John Monk Saunders. Photography by Harry Fischbeck, with photographic effects by Farciot Edouart, assisted by Loyal Griggs. Director: Stuart Walker (also Mitchell Leisen, credited as associate director). Shown at Cinecon 44, Hollywood CA, Aug-Sept 2008.

   No film at the convention made a more powerful impression on me than this WWI drama of pilots manning two-man planes making reconnaissance flights over enemy territory in France, with a tailgunner photographing target installations.

THE EAGLE AND THE HAWK

   The flights are euphemistically called “observation flights,” but the incidence of downed planes or planes returning with the tailgunner killed by enemy fire is high. Jerry Young (Fredric March), an American whose unit has been transferred to France to serve with a British company, keeps returning successfully but is increasingly depressed by the significant numbers of tailgunner losses.

   The unit is joined by Henry Crocker (Cary Grant), a pilot from Young’s American unit who had been left behind at Young’s recommendation. The antagonism between the two charges the close quarters with a palpable electricity, but it is Crocker who is most aware of Young’s instability, leading to a stunning conclusion.

   This is a powerful portrait of the human costs of war, with brilliant performances by March and Grant. Grant, who, with no trace of his man-about-town persona, has the kind of role he wanted to play when he tired of his type-casting. I think he gives one of the great performances of his career in the film.

THE EAGLE AND THE HAWK