Aerial Gunner

... It's 1943 and just about every film made that year involved some aspect of WWII. Even an MGM short about the weather called "Storm" hearkened back to that conflict. But I digress.

This low-budget war picture concerns airmen training to be tail gunners in bomber planes. Sgt. Foxy Pattis (Chester Morris) and Sgt. Jon Davis (Richard Arlen) have bad blood going back to before their military service, and things only get worse during the pressure of training. Can these two put their grudges aside in order to make the grade and become tail gunners?

This is corny and cliched, and the threadbare budget shows through quite often. The performances from Morris and Arlen are simply adequate, while young Jimmy Lydon gets to overdo it quite a bit as an emotionally-fragile recruit. Robert Mitchum has about three lines and shows up in one scene. This was one of nineteen movies in which he appeared in 1943, his debut year in pictures.

***SPOILERS*** 1943 war movie involving two army men who knew each other on the outside on different sides of the law. Having his father sent away in prison where he later committed suicide Foxy Pattis, Chester Morris,had it in for the young assistant DA responsible for his dads death Jon David, Richard Aplen. Davis joining the army after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor surprisingly meets Foxie who turns out to be his instructor in aerial gunnery school at camp Hags Texas, you can just imagine what happens next.

The movie actually begins when Davis, now a lieutenant in the USAAF,flies his disabled bomber back to the American lines in the Pacific. Badly wounded with almost all his crew-mates, with the exception of Pvt. "Gadget" Blaine (Dick Purcel), dead Davis goes into a long monologue about what happened From that point on we get the story about Foxie's courage under fire and how both David & Blaine owe their lives to him.

We get the usual war story, from Davis, about him having all kinds of trouble with Foxie, who does everything to wash him out of Gunnery School, at Hags and the added attraction of both Foxie and Davis vying for the love of Peggy Lunt, Amelita Ward. It turns out that Peggy's brother the quite and sensitive Pvt. Sandy Lunt, Jimmy Lyndon,is also at Gunnery School and is in Foxie's class. Sandy panic-stricken at shooting his off tail-gun at the school's qualifying finals is given a second chance by the understanding Foxie. The next day Sandy after hitting his target goes psycho and blows up his planes tail section sending it into a free fall and crashing into an empty field. Sandy is visited by Foxie at the hospital and forgives the very guilty stricken gunnery instructor for sending him up in the air to shoot off his gun and then suddenly expires.

The movie then moves to the Pacific Theater of War where we now see Davis in charge of a bomber crew and guess who's his newest crew member, Foxie! Not only is Davis reunited with Foxie but the same people at Hags who were instructed by Foxie in aerial gunnery school are members of Davis' crew, what are the odds of that happening!

Hated by everyone on the bomber crew for what he had to do with Sandy's death which was really nothing at all since Sandy was determined to go up in the air, and how the hell did Foxie know that he'd blow himself and his plane up. Foxie gets his big chance to redeem himself later in the movie in a dog fight with a half dozen Japanese zeros in the air and well as a full company of Japanese troops on the ground. Foxie heroically ends up giving his life to save his fellow crew members who both hated and despised him.

Nothing really out of the ordinary here when it comes to war propaganda films released by Hollywood during WWII. There's also a very young, and ruggedly handsome, Robert Mitchum in a small part in the movie, playing a tail gunner, that makes "Aerial Gunner" something of a curiosity piece.

"A bomber plane limps home from a dangerous mission and the wounded pilots recounts, in dramatic flashbacks, the story of one soldier's bravery. Sworn rivals in civilian life, Sgt. Davis (Richard Arlen) and 'Foxy' Pattis (Chester Morris) are shot down behind enemy lines. Surrounded by hostile Japanese troops, they must put aside their deep hatred of one another in order to survive. Featuring convincing aerial dogfight footage and authoritative performances by Morris and Arlen, this wartime propaganda extravaganza depicts men facing certain death roused to a higher calling," say the good folks at Alpha Video.

Popular "Henry Aldrich" series star Jimmy Lydon (as Sanford "Sandy" Lunt) makes a good dramatic impression. Playing Mr. Lydon's sister, attractive Amelita "Lita" Ward (as Peggy) makes her film debut; her second film co-starred William "Billy" Benedict (who is featured herein as a sleepy private) and future husband Leo Gorcey. Dependable Dick Purcell (as "Gadget") has the best comic relief scenes. Rugged Robert Mitchum receives special billing on present purchases of "Aerial Gunner" but appears very briefly (it is a speaking part, though). At least one of the fun bit and supporting players became Superman.

***** Aerial Gunner (3/20/43) William H. Pine ~ Chester Morris, Richard Arlen, Jimmy Lydon, Amelita Ward

A typical cheap WWII propaganda movie, but that's not to say it wasn't that bad. Not a great deal of war action until the last 10 minutes of the movie. The target practice scenes using a mobile target on a rail track was historically interesting. Seeing Robert Mitchum was a surprise, as his name did not appear in the opening/ending credits. It goes to show what a small part he plays. The rommance angle of the movie spoilt things a bit. Why do the writers always have two guys fighting over the same woman, when they have only just met her, then propose by the next scene? It would have been much better to stick to the gunnery training scenes, scrub the rommance angle, and have a bit more action.

Hollywood during World War II was slightly schizophrenic as it alternated releasing escapist movies that allowed theater-goers to momentarily forget about the war and patriotic "B" films that reminded all of the continuing threat and the cost of fighting.

"Aerial Gunner" is in the latter category, reflecting Tinseltown's desire to showcase every branch of the service and virtually every specialty (no film that I can recall honored the Graves Registration units nor were black contributions to victory the subject of main features. I wonder why.).

"Aerial Gunner" deals with - aerial gunners, those enlisted men whose skill with machine guns in swerving aircraft under furious attack often made the difference between getting back to base or going down in flames.

The government generously supported these film projects and in this movie the producer, director and cast were given not only stock footage but also a base, hundreds of servicemen as extras and planes to film.

Ex-New York City assistant district attorney John Davis (Richard Arlen) was quite hated before the war by Coney Island barker "Foxy" Pattis for prosecuting his dad, leading to the old man killing himself. Big surprise, both men wind up at aerial gunnery school where SGT Pattis is SGT Davis's instructor. And he's determined to wash the lawyer out. Real original plot.

But then the scriptwriter came up with something truly novel. Both Pattis and Davis fall in love with the same girl, Peggy Lunt, played by Lita Ward. I don't think this had ever been done before in a war movie.

Pattis and Davis are sort of reconciled and, somehow, both wind up in the same unit in the Pacific where Pattis has become both an officer and a pilot (beyond highly unlikely for a noncom who graduated aerial gunnery school).

The rest of the drama is predictable. "Aerial Gunner" offers hefty shots of patriotism and reminds all that Americans make great sacrifices at the front.

What truly enraged me, and I'm sure will infuriate other viewers, was the scene when a gunner calls out that Japanese Zeros were attacking and there immediately is shown a single-engine monoplane with FIXED landing gear. Is there an American kid today who doesn't know that the vaunted Mitsubishi fighter had retractable gear?

5/10 (but it does recapture a time in which movies made the war more immediate and, dare I say it, entertaining).