The Dawn Patrol (1938)
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
- In 1915 France, Major Brand (Basil Rathbone) commands the 39th Squadron of the Royal Flying Corps. The young airmen go up in bullet-riddled "crates" and the casualty rate is appalling, but Brand can't make the "brass hats" at headquarters see reason. Insubordinate air ace Captain Courtney (Errol Flynn) is another thorn in Brand's side...but finds the smile wiped from his face when he rises to command the squadron himself. Everyone keeps a stiff upper lip.
- Actors:
- Errol Flynn, Basil Rathbone, David Niven, Donald Crisp, Melville Cooper, Barry Fitzgerald, Carl Esmond, Peter Willes, Morton Lowry, Michael Brooke, James Burke, Stuart Hall, Herbert Evans, Sidney Bracey, Leo Nomis, Hal Brazeale, Tyrone Brereton, Richard Deane, Burnett Fergrison, Fred Graham
- Directors:
- Edmund Goulding
- Producers:
- Hal B. Wallis, Jack L. Warner
- Writers:
- Seton I. Miller, Dan Totheroh, John Monk Saunders, Howard Hawks
- Aka:
- La escuadrilla de la aurora
- Genres:
- Action & Adventure, Classics, Drama
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Reviews (1) of The Dawn Patrol
War Babies - The Dawn Patrol review by Steve
Faithful remake of the 1930 version, which itself is Journey's End revised for the war in the sky. The action footage is taken from the Howard Hawks original. Casualties are high among the Royal Flying Corps on the Western Front in 1915. The dead are replaced by schoolboys, and the unraveling survivors self medicate their psychological traumas with whisky.
The remake looks patchy with so much recycled footage. But it has two main advantages: Max Steiner’s score, and the company of excellent (mostly) British actors. Errol Flynn is effortlessly charismatic as an ace pilot taking ever greater risks in his patched up fighter. He shares a riotous rapport with fellow flyer, David Niven.
Basil Rathbone plays the officer sending the men to their deaths as a cold eyed villain. And he’s chilling. With war again inevitable in Europe, it's interesting that this was remade after only eight years. Warners had a reputation as the most pro-intervention studio, but this is an isolationist film. It is not pro-British, or even anti-German. It just restates that war is hell.
This is a familiar WWI, with the young patriotic recruits, the brittle facade of business as usual and the capricious plans executed at a terrible cost. There is the class hierarchy that permits the flyers to drink with aristocratic German prisoners, but not their own mechanics. It's a persuasive impression which asks us to remember the fallen and implores, never again…