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Michael Curtiz’s flashy and splashy wartime morale booster began as a pre-Pearl Harbor show of support of our Canadian friends’ contribution to the war effort. A vehicle for James Cagney, its script is a trifle about bush pilots competing for a woman and then showing The Right Stuff when it comes time to join up to fight. Cagney’s ‘bad boy’ act is always good, but what slays us now are the stunning Technicolor images filmed in and over the vast Canadian forest country with its endless crystal clear lakes. The aerial work in 3-Strip Technicolor is breathtaking, especially in this full new digital restoration.

Captains of the Clouds

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1942 / Color / 1:37 Academy / 113 min. / Available at Amazon.com / Street Date March 22, 2022 / 21.99

Starring: James Cagney, Dennis Morgan, Brenda Marshall, Alan Hale, George Tobias, Reginald Gardiner, Air Marshal W.A. Bishop, Reginald Denny, Russell Arms, Paul Cavanagh, Clem Bevans,...

As Disney quietly disappears huge swathes of film history into its vaults, I'm going to spend 2020 celebrating Twentieth Century Fox and the Fox Film Corporation's films, what one might call their output if only someone were putting it out.And now they've quietly disappeared William Fox's name from the company: guilty by association with Rupert Murdoch, even though he never associated with him.***I really love old movies, and in tough times escaping into the past can be awfully attractive. Even the uglier side of studio product, for instance the racial caricaturing can seem like the necessary abrasive element in an otherwise smoothly pleasurable experience.I suppose everyone has their own tipping point, though, when the uncomfortable or disturbing elements overwhelm the entertainment. I can laugh at (not with) the jaw-dropping "Goin' To Heaven on a Mule" number in Warner Bros' Wonder Bar (1934), with its blackface afterlife and spot...