Only Angels Have Wings
|
List Price: Our Price: $7.88 You Save: $7.11 (47%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $3.99 (click here) Category: DVD See more DVD releases |
|---|
Canada
Movie Reviews of Only Angels Have Wings
Movie Review: Classic Cary
Summary: 5 Stars
Cary Grant and Jean Arthur at their best. Great supporting cast sometimes overwhelm the "stars" but these two manage to steal the show. It don't get no better than this!! Look for very young Rita Hayworth in minor role.Movie Review: Neal E.
Summary: 5 Stars
Simply one of the best films ever, and displays why Howard Hawks is one of the all time masters of the medium.Movie Review: Still flys high six decades later
Summary: 4 Stars
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.
Movie Review: great pace and dialogue and sweetly old-fashioned
Summary: 4 Stars
This 1939 flick provided perfect entertainment for a rainy Sunday afternoon. Shot in black and white, it nonetheless featured stunning photography (especially for the time) of small, fragile planes soaring over Andean peaks which brought home the danger and romance of those days of aviation.
Cary Grant plays a man trying to run an aerial mail service in some South American country (Barraca!). The technology of the time is amusingly crude. To check the weather, he posts a man in a hut atop a mountain pass to radio down when the clouds are clearing. When a plane gets lost in the fog and tries to find the runway, the ground crew shines a light up into the air and listens to engine noise and then tries to guide him home -- unsuccessfully.
It's a dangerous business and when pilots die, which they often to, the rest of the crew cope with the stress by pretending the dead man never existed. Grant himself, we learn, has been burned by love and is determined not to let another woman pin him down.
In one jarring scene, a plane loaded with explosives is ordered to turn back when the weather changes and drops its cargo on a bunch of condors to get rid of the pesky creatures. Conservation and respect for other creatures was clearly a concept that hadn't yet taken hold.
Jean Arthur strolls off a boat for a night in the town, falls in love with Grant and spends the rest of the movie trying to lure him. She's feisty and witty with a soft center. Rita Hayworth has a secondary role which consists mostly of looking sexy.
The dialogue crackles and sparkles and the movie moves along at a seering pace. Don't think too much about the plot -- it's as ramshackle as the planes these guys fly.
Movie Review: In context this is a very impressive movie.
Summary: 4 Stars
This movie could serve as material for at least 10 hours of debate in a movie appreciation course. There are so many things to analize here. First of all, there's a huge amount of stereotypes that have their source in the 30's and 40's movies. The tragic fate of heroes, the tormented "girl" in love with him, the "exotic" latins, the loyal sidekicks and so. This is basically a matinée movie. The plot was made for people that didn't even know or cared about the cultural differences between each southamerican country, they were audiences that needed to flee from serious topics such as WWII. Moreover, this story could have been set in Africa or Phillipines, it wouldn't have mattered. What's important about this movie is that it's intended for fun and it's highlights deal with heroism, and besides all that, it's still very entertaining. The special fx seem dated now, but they must have looked great then. Regarding the performances, Jean Arthur steals the show, even though she was 40 at the time, she looks young, energetic and skillful. Watching Rita Hayworth at 21 is a treat and Cary Grant, even though poorly casted, does his best to bring something to the party (Check his armpit-high trousers). All the cast goes along with this improbable story and Hawks puts together this nonsense nicely pouring his instinct for adventure every minute. The dvd quality is great. Loosen up and enjoy this movie placing yourselves in it's context.