Hell's Angels (film)
| Hell's Angels | |
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| Directed by |
Howard Hughes James Whale (uncredited) Edmund Goulding (uncredited) Fred Fleck (assistant) |
| Produced by | Howard Hughes |
| Written by |
Harry Behn Howard Estabrook Joseph Moncure March (uncredited) |
| Starring |
Ben Lyon James Hall Jean Harlow |
| Music by | Hugo Riesenfeld (uncredited) |
| Cinematography |
Tony Gaudio Harry Perry |
| Edited by | Douglass Biggs Frank Lawrence Perry Hollingsworth (uncredited) |
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Production
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| Distributed by | United Artists |
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Release date
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Running time
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131 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $3.95 million (estimated, equivalent to $57,000,000 in 2016) |
| Box office | $8 million ($115,378,682.63 in 2016 dollars) |
Hell's Angels is a 1930 independently made American epic aviation war film, directed and produced by Howard Hughes, that stars Ben Lyon, James Hall, and Jean Harlow. The film, which was written by Harry Behn and Howard Estabrook, was released by United Artists. Originally shot as a silent film, Hughes retooled Hell's Angels over a lengthy gestation period. Most of the film is in black-and-white, but there is one color sequence, the only color footage of Harlow's career.
Despite its initial poor performance at the box office, the film eventually earned its production costs twice over. Controversy during the Hell's Angels production contributed to the film's notoriety, including the accidental deaths of several pilots, an inflated budget, a lawsuit against a competitor (The Dawn Patrol), and repeated postponements of the release date. Hell's Angels is now hailed as one of the screen's first sound action films.
Roy (James Hall) and Monte Rutledge (Ben Lyon) are very different British brothers. Strait-laced Roy loves and idealizes the apparently demure Helen (Jean Harlow). Monte, on the other hand, is a womanizer. Their German friend and fellow Oxford student Karl (John Darrow) is against the idea of having to fight England when World War I breaks out.
Meanwhile, the oblivious Monte is caught in the arms of a woman by her German officer husband (Lucien Prival), who insists upon a duel the next day. Monte flees that night. When Roy is mistaken for his brother, he goes ahead with the duel and is shot in the arm.
Karl is conscripted into the German Air Force, and the two British brothers enlist in the Royal Flying Corps (RFC), Monte only to get a kiss from a girl at the recruiting station.
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Wikipedia