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Only Angels Have Wings

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Only Angels Have Wings is a perfect example of an often ignored, but excellent, classic movie. Directed by Howard Hawks, and with a great cast, Only Angels Have Wings is half exciting adventure movie and half romantic comedy. The sense of setting and atmosphere is very good as well - you almost feel as though the movie transports you to the imaginary South American port town of Barranca. The movie describes the adventures of a group of pilots working in a very dangerous location - they are hemmed in by mountains, and constantly face bad weather conditions. More specifically, it focuses on Bonnie Lee (Jean Arthur), a chorus girl staying in the town, and her encounters with the tough boss of the business, Jeff Carter (Cary Grant).

The cast is very good. Cary Grant, though not playing his usual role, is excellent as the tough boss, who only flys when it is too tough for anyone else. Jean Arthur is sweet and believable as the stranded chorus girl, and the supporting cast, including a very young Rita Hayworth (in her first A-movie) is perfect.

Anyhow, if you haven't seen this hidden classic from 1939, what are you waiting for? The DVD is very good - the movie is very clear and sharp, and there are a few interesting special features as well (previews for other movies and old advertisement posters, for instance). But the movie alone is worth getting - it is a must have!

Only Angels Have Wings is one of those many hidden treasures, one that was never really discovered... but will always be remembered. Taking place in a South American port of call for local Bananna Boats-Barranca- in which a Dutchman, John van Rider (The Dutchman) who runs almost everything in town, owns an air mail service that-despite hazardous and blinding weather- always sends its mail (and pilots) out on time, so that new planes can be bought, which will help weather conditions. As I have mentioned, the weather is harmful, and many who are emplyed by the Dutchman are killed at one point or another. Out of the small gang of pilots (including John Carrol as Jent Shelton, in a minor but excellent role), one stands out; Cary Grant, who plays Jeff Carter, a once sensitive and caring man who was turned into a cynical, unhappy chappy after a harsh breakup. Running the airline, Jeff only goes out when he thinks it might be too hard for anyone else. Bonnie Lee (Jean Arthur, in one of her first large roles)has just gotten of a Northbound boat to cool off for a couple of hours before the ship has loaded some bannanas and is ready to set out to sea. On the shore, she is met by two pilots who (after some trouble) manage to "get" her. Heartless Jeff sends one out for a delivery, contrary to a deal made between the two. Bonnie is shocked by Jeff's behavior. After deciding to come back when the fog is too much to bare, the pilot attepts a dangerous landing resulting in his death. Bonnie is shocked by how easily and rudely the bunch takes it. However, she is explained to by two members of the band, including Jeff's veteran flier best friend Kidd (played by Thomas Mitchell in perhaps one of his best roles) that they must do that or te feelings balled up inside them would be too much to bare. So Bonnie cheers up and joins the group. The next day, when Jeff gtes back from a delivery, he is surprised to find that Bonnie purposely missed her boat ride. He informs her in a rather cruel manner that she has to go on the next boat. Just when everything seems perfect, a new pilot, McPherson (a great role for Richard Bartelmess) and his wife Judy arrive, (Rita Hayworth, in her career starting film) and two rather astonsihing revalations are made. After, the pilots try again to lead a happy life, though, as they discover, it may be rather difficult.

ONLY ANGELS HAVE WINGS is perhaps one of the ten best films to this day, although widely ignored. The performances, direction, and sharp dialougue are equivalent to a solid five of today's so-called best films. Cary Grant is amazing, and as always, was ignored by the Acadamey Awards, as was everything about the film.

Even among other films such as Gone With the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, Gunga Din, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and other outstanding films, Only Angels Have Wings is this viewers favourite. My Secind Favourite Grant Film, and top ten worthy film of any kind, Only Angels Have Wings is a powerful, sad, hilarious, cynical, and brilliant film.

This is yet another great movie from the remarkable year, 1939. I've always been curious as to what plateau the movies would have wound up on had it not been for the devastating chain of events called WWII, which had begun the year before in Europe and China.

Jean Arthur, one of Hollywood's great comedic actresses, plays a show biz type who, for reasons never made clear, has sailed into a backwater South American port. There she meets a bunch of guys who work for a rickety airline that needs to get a big mail delivery contract in order to survive. Cary Grant plays the leader of this group. He's been burned by women in the past, and, though attracted to Arthur, acts the tough guy who only cares about his job and his buddies. It doesn't take long for Arthur to decide that he's the one for her, but she's worldly enough to know that this is one catch that will be hard to reel in. Meanwhile, Grant and company have enough to keep them busy, as they battle wind, rain, fog, old airplanes, big birds and some very tall mountains in order to get said mail to its destination.

One thing I love about this movie is the way is never seems to take itself seriously. I don't know what the filmmakers intended, but much of it seems almost a satire of macho action pictures. Why else would they cast two such wonderfully funny stars in the leads?

Also of note is way the script addresse some tricky issues in the Arthur-Grant relationship by giving the movie a hopeful, rather than happy, ending. It leaves it up to the viewer to decide if this odd couple will make it or not.

The movie won an Oscar for Best Special Effects. Some of these are remarkable even today, while others are now laughably crude. But the special effects are just icing on the cake. Only Angels Have Wings is very much story driven. Nearly half of it takes place on one set, but the characters have so much going on that you hardly noctice the static setting.

Great supporting perfomances by Thomas Mitchell, Richard Bathelmess and a very young, inexperienced Riat Hayworth.

All in all, an endearing, highly entertaining movie.

First off, if you like Howard Hawks in general, or To Have and Have Not, you will love this movie. To Have and Have Not lifts its entire plot line and much of its dialogue from this, perhaps even finer, movie.

Cary Grant is hard-bitten, amoral, and cold as ice in this movie. And he's great! Way better than when he's acting suave or zany in other movies. The flying scenes have aged far better than similar special effects in other movies, and the dialogue, sexual tension, and machismo still crackles. I could imagine Barranca existing sixty years ago, and I imagine that it still exists in modern form today.

The plot line is fairly bare, a bunch of down on their luck pilots disagree, fight, and try to get by in a jungle port. (Barranca, where the film takes place, is one of the greatest sets I've ever seen. Maybe the best black and white set with the exception of Rick's Cafe Americain ever). There's a vengeance plot line, an unrequited love, and a floundering airline mixed in. It sounds like too much, but the combination works just right. The gray, noirish atmosphere really adds to the feeling of depression-era despair and hope.

Really, really good.

This was the second dvd I bought ever and one of my favorites along with "Arsenic and Old Lace", also starring Cary Grant, but a whole different stuff. This entertaining movie keeps your attention all the time, Cary Grant and Jean Arthur are in top form and are a great couple, they do have chemistry. Richard Barthelmess, a very good actor, does a fine job in the role of the bitter guy with-a-past-that-won't-let-him-go. Rita Hayworth, in one of her first important roles, is pretty and effective as Grant's old flame. Thomas Mitchell's excellent as always, giving another great performance in a year (1939) in which he gave us such classic performances as Doc in "Stagecoach", Scarlett O'Hara's father in "GWTW", Clopin in "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" and Diz in "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington". By the way, Can you think of another year in which such an amount of classic films were released than 1939!! And this one's from that year!

When we shuffle off to that fabled desert island I'll let you take CASABLANCA or CITIZEN KANE or any other Greatest American Film you care to name - I'll take ONLY ANGELS HAVE WINGS and count myself the lucky one.
We're in the tiny port of call Barranca on the coast of Ecuador. Bonnie Lee (Jean Arthur), a `specialty' entertainer, is getting off the boat. A couple of fly-boys pick her up and treat her to a dinner at the hotel/restaurant/bar and headquarters of Barranca Airlines. Geoff Carter (Cary Grant) enters and sends one of the fly-boys off into a nasty spell of weather - the mail has to be delivered.
The plane crashes and the pilot is killed. The rest of the pilots, led by Carter, respond with indifference and some forced gaiety. Bonnie is shocked by the callousness of it all:
Bonnie: Haven't you any feelings? Don't you realize he's dead?
Geoff: Who's dead? Who's Joe?
One face slap later Geoff lays it out for her. "And all the weeping and wailing in the world won't make him any deader 20 years from now. If you feel like bawling, how do you think we feel?"
End of lesson one. Bonnie is intrigued enough to miss her connecting boat and stays in Barranca for an action packed week. Geoff may be her ideal man, if she can just crack The Code.
ONLY ANGELS HAVE WINGS is less plot driven than most. Rather, it is a slow accumulation of scenes dealing with themes director Howard Hawks would return to again and again - male camaraderie, stoic indifference to danger, courage and devotion to duty. It also asks how women fit into this testosterone loaded environment. As usual, he assembles a competent ensemble cast and explores these issues from a number of angles.
For instance, take Bat MacPherson (Richard Bathelmess), a good pilot who has a black mark against him. Prior to arriving in Barranca he bailed out of a plane and allowed his co-pilot to die in the crash. That type of cowardice offends The Code, and MacPherson is ostracized and given the worst and most dangerous assignments - if he dies the group's indifference won't be feigned. By coincidence MacPherson arrives with his beautiful wife Judy (Rita Hayworth), the `somebody' Bonnie earlier tells Geoff "must've given you an awful beating once." Judy couldn't conform to The Code with Geoff, and as luck will have it she's saddled with another confounding male - she doesn't understand why the other pilots shun her husband, and The Code doesn't allow anyone to explain it to her.
Everyone is on top of their game in this one (this was Rita Hayworth's breakout movie). As an unexpected and bonus the print is almost immaculate. The dvd also contains a number of movie posters, biographies of the director and the major stars and a trailers for HIS GIRL FRIDAY and GILDA.

Hollywood has made some fine aviation movies in the last 20 years: Battle of Britian; Blue Max; Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines. But they can never equal the handful of great films of the dozen or so years ending with the Second World War. Wings; Hell"s Angels and Dawn Patrol are unremakable monuments to a different age and a very different paradigm and Only Angels Have Wings may be the greatest of them all. 1930s audiences didn't see pilots as boys next store run through flight school. Pilots were special and it was he essence of their specialness to fly. They flew behind unreliable engines, in deadly weather, low over murdeous terrain and they were not afraid. In this 1939 production, Jean Arthur, stopping briefly in a South American banama port, confronts that specialness in a group of airmail fliers and their Chief Pilot, Cary Grant. The clash of the imperaives of flying against the equally powerful imperatives of friendship, loyalty, grief and passion make this movie great. Arthur is initially appalled to watch Grant send one after another of his pilots through a deadly mountain pass in an effort to establilsh an airline. Yet, she and the audience quickly recognize Grant's essential decency. Only Angels Have Wings was produced and directed by Howard Hawks and features a stong suporting cast, including Richard Barthelmess as a pilot achiefing redemption in a fiery crash and Thomas Mitchell as a veteran aviator at the close of his career. The flying sequences by the celebrated Paul Mantz are impressive and sometimes breathtaking such as he scene of a Ford Trimoter spinning down through the clouds. If you have any interest inf flying or the prewar era, like a good story or just want to watch a superb actor and actress, this is for you.

Howard Hawks fashioned Jules Furthman's good screenplay into a true screen classic of male comaraderie and the women who must choose to accept it and love without attempting to change it. Hawks had Martinique as the setting for "To Have and Have Not" but showed his preference for exotic locales early on by setting "Only Angels Have Wings" in the South American port of Barranca. It makes a colorful backdrop to an even more colorful story of what it is to be a man.

The banana boats are coming in and Geoff (Cary Grant) is sending the mail out by plane in dangerous conditions in order to keep afloat his rag-tag outfit of pilots, living dangerously and liking it. They all wear guns but it's the weather that's more likely to take them down.

This is made clear early on when Bonnie Lee (Jean Arthur) hits the port for a short layover and attracts the good-natured attention of a couple of Geoff's pilots, one of whom Bonnie will see go down in flames just a few hours later. It is only then that Bonnie, already attracted to Geoff, will get a glimpse of real men and what their world is like.

Hawks shows the suspicion men who've been with a woman or two often harbor towards every female in a telling scene when Bonnie takes a momento from the fallen pilot's belongings and Geoff scoffs at her greed. Only moments later when she gives it to the young Mexican girl who adored him does he give Bonnie a few points, and then only in surprise.

Arthur is terrific here trying not to let her emotions show so she can live in Geoff's world. When a new pilot with a checkered past shows up (Richard Barthelmess), with Geoff's old flame in tow (Rita Hayworth), Bonnie realizes just how serious Geoff is about never asking anything of a woman. There is a ton of male adventure filling the screen in the meantime.

There are dangerous flights with nitro, daring flights for doctors, and Hawks even allowing a female into the act when Bonnie wings Geoff by accident with his own pistol. She goes to pieces, of course, as in Hawks' world, men were men and women weren't. I've never met a guy who doesn't love this film and perhaps that's why. Hawks adds his own spin on the romantic touch with the flip of a coin saying everything Geoff cannot put into words.

Grant is great here and Arthur sparkles. The rest of the cast is excellent, with Thomas Mitchell especially memorable as Geoff's best friend. Any male who wants to hang out in a bar with their pals and not talk about what every man already knows by virtue of their kind, will love this one. You'll wish there were a few girls like Arthur still out there too. Just a fantastic look at good men, jaded about women, but still needing them. Another masterpiece from director Howard Hawks.

What??? Yet another classic from 1939? Yes, and a darn good one, too! One of Hollywood's most perennial delights, this is a great film any which way you slice it. When showgirl Bonnie Lee (Arthur) is docked via her ship in the banana republic of Barranca, she's delighted to met two American flyers: Joe Souther and Les Peters (Noah Beery, Jr. & Allyn Joslyn). They fly for a cut-rate airline owned by softhearted Dutchy (Sig Rumann). The airline is run by hard-boiled Geoff (Grant) who, despite hazardous weather conditions, must maintain a regular flight performance in order to obtain the mail subsidy. Geoff is rather misogynistic because of a previously sour romance with another gal: Geoff's best friend Kid (Thomas Mitchell) tells Bonnie to keep away from him.....There's obviously much more to this exhilerating Columbia film which was originally entitled PLANE NO. 4. Based upon a story fragment in which director Howard Hawks wrote in 1938 entitled PLANE FROM BARRANCA. Hawks said that he conceived the idea for the story while he was flying with a Mexican bush pilot around Mexico. Lightweight leading man Robert Sterling made his motion picture debut here.

Many of the other movies of 1939, the so called Golden Year of American Films, are the culmination of a decade of experiments with sound (and the consequent adjustment in acting style which the "talkies" necessitated). Thus Mr. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON, for example, forms the perfection of a certain kind of screwball/sentimental comedy that Frank Capra had been making all throughout the 1930s. When it comes to ONLY ANGELS HAVE WINGS, however, something entirely new is being born, and the picture ruptures the through-line of previous films by all of its participants, especially the director, Howard Hawks, who really finds his feet here for the first time.

For Cary Grant, it was a step he really wasn't prepared to take, and his subsequent releases backed off from the hard, cold, unlikable he-man he plays here. His Geoff Carter doesn't really give a damn about anything except flying and Thomas Mitchell, "Kid Dabb." Geoff's romantic feelings for Bonnie (Jean Arthur) and Judy (Rita Hayworth) are nearly entirely cynical. In Hawks' world, a woman earns the right to be with a man by acting like one. Men don't want trouble (so for the most part they don't want women.)

There's something Shakespearean about the piece and it's not just the incredible presence of Richard Barthelmess, a great actor but no longer the exquisite boy-man of TOL'BLE DAVID and the Griffith silent films. Here, like Falstaff, he has seen the chimes at midnight. It's also the knowledge that one style of screen acting (Jean Arthur's) is on its way out and a new one (Hayworth's) is on its way in--not acting at all really, but spectacle. Splendid in its own way.