I am usually fairly charitable to flag waver movies made during WWII. Their purpose was more to demonstrate the sacrifice of our military and keep up the morale of the folks on the home front, than to entertain. I just watched LC on a DVD I bought off of eBay. It was hard to sit all the way through. It's more bad soap opera than flag waver. While the movie tries to show the bravery and sacrifice of the Women's Air Service Pilots (WASPs) it deals primarily with the emotional problems of the various women.
Loretta Young is well cast as Roberta Harper, the mother hen leader of the civilian female pilots. Geraldine Fitzgerald is her famous pilot sister, Virgie, who is as reckless as she is outspoken. Anne Gwynne, June Vincent, Diana Barrymore, and Evelyn Ankers, and a few others round out the female cast. The full cast is a large one and look fast for some soon to be familiar faces in small walk-on roles.
Virgie is so upset about the women not being military officers and not getting the recognition they deserve, that she deliberately crashes a badly needed P-38 as a publicity stunt. That's the sort of immature and over emotional reactions that these women demonstrate. Not exactly the sort of thing to inspire confidence as to what good pilots they are supposed to be. Roberta deals with all the others' problems while keeping her own inside. The flag waving gets lost amidst all the female turmoil going on.
LC is also hindered by the stilted way that Geraldine Fitzgerald and Diana Barrymore deliver their lines. They both sound more British than the All-American girls they are supposed to be portraying.
About 80 minutes into the movie, I thought it might have risen to at least be mediocre. Then came the ending. It is the most contrived Hollywood far-fetched ending that it could possibly be. The ending actually destroys whatever positive points that had been made bout the WASPs in the story. I won't spoil it, all I can say is that you have to see the ending to believe that's what the script writers came up with.
