Aerial Gunner

"Aerial Gunner" is a very low-budget WWII propaganda film that has many familiar plot elements. The trouble is, although there are MANY movies like this one (including, off the top of my head, "Flying Tigers", "A Yank in the RAF", "Captains of the Clouds" and "I Wanted Wings"), these other films are just a lot better. The film is made by tiny Pine-Thomas Productions and suffers from uneven acting (Richard Arlen wasn't all that good) and a cheap look.

Like most of the films above, this one is set in a training camp for the Army Air Corps. In this case, it's aerial gunnery school. And, like most of these films, it involves a cocky recruit and the man in charge of his training--and they fall for the same woman (quite the cliché). The trainee, like these other films, makes a nuisance of himself and in the end gives his all to prove himself and receive redemption.

The film contains NOTHING new...nothing. There are also elements of "The Eagle and the Hawk" and the ending a lot like "First Yank in Tokyo" and all the films above! Been there, done that....'nuff said....

I had never even heard of this movie, but I bought the DVD because my father-in-law was a WWII aerial gunner on B-17s in Europe and I'd just recently begun getting him to tell his stories onto audiotape for posterity. I thought that this might add to my knowledge of what he had experienced.

Based on my father-in-law's first hand accounts, I can tell you that the aerial gunnery school sequences in this film are relatively close to what the training was like. (For example, they really did make them assemble a 50 caliber machine gun while blind-folded.) However, the combat/action sequences at the climax of this film miss the mark by a mile.

I'd recommend this film to you if you are a fan of Robert Mitchum and want to see one of his early (uncredited), bit-part roles.

I'd also recommend this film to any fans of Jimmy Lydon, who starred as "Henry Aldrich" in the many "Henry Aldrich" films of the 1940's. Unlike Mitchum, Lydon has a large dramatic role in this picture and since this was filmed during the same era as the Aldrich movies, you could have given this film the alternate title "Henry Aldrich Goes to War".

Unfortunately, sub-par writing, acting, directing, and budget all contribute to the anemic quality of this film. If you're looking for a WWII story with real entertainment value, stick to the period pieces starring John Wayne. I'm giving this film 4 stars based on it's curiosity value alone.

It is a propaganda war drama shot in 1943. There is romance, action, and nothing special besides that. Chester Morris and Richard Arlen are both worth the watch. Not a rare film though but that doesn't justify not to try it. If you are a gem digger, you should watch it. I don't know the director, never heard of him, but this film is really entertaining and brings however a good ending, in the pure tradition of those years or fight and sacrifice. Yes, a good light hearted propaganda feature to help audiences to forget the horrors of war or at least watch them in a smooth way. Good little film. I recommend it.

... 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.

After making his screen debut, Robert Mitchum continued to fill our screens by appearing in this film. He's probably eye-candy for a female American audience, or a Western audience who thought all American were tall and broad shouldered like him. There isn't much range in his acting and he doesn't take you by surprise.