The Eagle and the Hawk (1933)

Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??

Better Late Then Never

A Disappointing Continuation

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Fredric March and Cary Grant star in "The Eagle and the Hawk," a 1933 film about World War I.March plays Jerry Young, a Flying Corps pilot responsible for filming documentary positions. It's extremely difficult for him; a sensitive man, seeing all the tragedy devastates him.Crocker (Cary Grant) is an ambitious gunner, anxious to get in the air, and loves killing Germans.The film has wonderful aviation scenes (and Mitchell Leisen is rumored to have been the actual director of this film) which are very impressive.A powerful antiwar statement, and very unusual for its time. The ending is quite stunning and partially unexpected.Both men give excellent performances - in today's world, March may seem a bit over the top, but it was the style in those days. Carole Lombard has brief scenes as someone who tries to be helpful to him.The overall atmosphere of this film is depressing, so don't watch it if you want to be entertained by something light. However, it's ahead of its time and definitely worth seeing.

Powerful WWI film about the horrors of war, with an exceptional performance by Fredric March as an American pilot flying with the RAF who grows increasingly disturbed by all the death he sees. Cary Grant has an important supporting role as another pilot who clashes with March. This is one of the earliest dramatic roles for Cary that showed what he was capable of. Carole Lombard has only one scene as the appropriately-titled Beautiful Lady. Jack Oakie is March's sidekick, the closest thing to comic relief in the film. About midway through the film, look for a brief scene with Kenneth Howell playing a young pilot. He walks into the scene wearing eye shadow, lipstick, and penciled-on eyebrows!Terrific aviation action scenes and short runtime are pluses. Sincere, believable antiwar film that gets its message across more powerfully than a hundred preachier movies of its type. Not as well-remembered as some of its contemporaries but it should be.

Not too much is new in THE EAGLE AND THE HAWK. It's an anti-war story about fliers, the men in command and the new men who are really just kids and who lose their lives in what seems like a senseless string of tragedies.It's been done before in stories like DAWN PATROL--and more effectively when it concentrated on the men and their relationships under stress. Here, for no apparent reason, CAROLE LOMBARD has a brief ten minutes of screen time as "a beautiful woman" who gives emotional support (and more) to FREDRIC MARCH, who is hell bent on trying to forget the casualties of war under his command.The anti-war sentiment is hammered home pretty hard with March as the stressed out lieutenant who has to cope with the losses around him and animosity in his relationship with CARY GRANT, a tail gunner who confronts him in cynical distrust and appears to be jealous of March's medals. Their unstable interplay is the only aspect of the story that is given a new twist, especially toward the end.There are plenty of good flying scenes and most of the performances are smooth, but Lombard's part is little more than a bit at a time when she had the leading femme role in many other films. The decision to use her here is questionable.Grant hadn't yet developed his lighter persona but is reasonably good as the conflicted gunner and March is excellent as the equally conflicted top gun.Personally, I prefer DAWN PATROL to this World War I tale of men under combat stress.

THE EAGLE AND THE HAWK is well on the way to being the best film of it's day and contains Frederic March's most impressive performance, nicely set against Cary Grant who had yet to make his own screen presence identifiable.This stands along side any of it's cycle of aviation films - the great WINGS, HELL'S ANGELS, THE LOST SQUADRON, the draggy Hawks version of DAWN PATROL, THE LAST FLIGHT. The impact is not from the air action but from the way the familiar breaking point material is worked out in terms of character. The mess hall climax and subsequent resolution can't be faulted.It is amazing that a film saying something so substantial, so well was not singled out by critics or subsequently "discovered." The same may be said of several of March's other films of the day. He remains the most underestimated film star we have.Though credited to Stuart Walker, it is widely held that the film is the director debut of Mitchel Leisen who did the later and presentable plane movie I WANTED WINGS.Though just over an hour the film does not have the feeling of slightness. It's tempo is impeccable. I'm impressed every time I run this one.