The Dawn Patrol (1938 film)
| The Dawn Patrol | |
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1938 US Theatrical Poster
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| Directed by | Edmund Goulding |
| Produced by |
Jack L. Warner (executive producer) Hal B. Wallis (executive producer) Robert Lord (associate producer) |
| Written by |
John Monk Saunders (story) Seton I. Miller Dan Totheroh |
| Starring |
Errol Flynn Basil Rathbone David Niven |
| Music by | Max Steiner |
| Cinematography | Tony Gaudio |
| Edited by | Ralph Dawson |
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Production
company |
Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc.
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| Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
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Release date
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Running time
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103 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $500,000 (approx) |
The Dawn Patrol is a 1938 American war film, a remake of the pre-Code 1930 film of the same name. Both were based on the short story "The Flight Commander" by John Monk Saunders, an American writer said to have been haunted by his inability to get into combat as a flyer with the U.S. Air Service. The book of short stories, War Patrol by A.S. Long published in the 1930s also bears a striking resemblance in plot and characters to the Flynn/Niven version of the film, although it is never credited as a source.
The film, directed by Edmund Goulding, stars Errol Flynn, Basil Rathbone and David Niven as Royal Flying Corps fighter pilots in World War I. Of the several films that Flynn and Rathbone appeared in together, it is the only one in which their characters are on the same side. Although sparring as in their other roles, their characters are fast friends and comrades in danger.
The Dawn Patrol's story romanticizes many aspects of the World War I aviation experience that have since become clichés: white scarves, hard-drinking fatalism by doomed pilots, chivalry in the air between combatants, the short life expectancy of new pilots, and the legend of the "Red Baron." However, The Dawn Patrol also has a deeper and more timeless theme in the severe emotional scarring on a military commander who must constantly order men to their deaths. This theme underlies every scene in The Dawn Patrol.
In 1915, at the airdrome in France of the Royal Flying Corps' 59th Squadron, Major Brand (Basil Rathbone), the squadron commander, and his adjutant Phipps (Donald Crisp) anxiously await the return of the dawn patrol. Brand is near his breaking point. He has lost 16 pilots in the previous two weeks, nearly all of them young replacements with little training and no combat experience. Brand is ordered to send up tomorrow what amounts to a suicide mission. Captain Courtney (Errol Flynn), leader of A Flight, and his good friend "Scotty" Scott (David Niven) return, but two of the replacements are not so lucky, and another, Hollister, is severely depressed by having witnessed the death of his best friend. The survivors repair to the bar in their mess for drinks and fatalistic revelry. Courtney does his best to console Hollister, but the youngster breaks down in grief.
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Wikipedia