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Hell’s Angels Movie Review

Hell’s Angels is a 1930 pre-Code epic war film directed by Howard Hughes and starring Ben Lyon, James Hall and Jean Harlow. It’s a fun, but flawed picture.

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“Listen, Roy, never love a woman.

Just make love to her“

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Brothers Monte and Ray leave Oxford to join the Royal Flying Corps. Ray loves Helen, but Helen enjoys an affair with Monte. Before they leave on their mission over Germany they find her in another man’s arms. The plot is serviceable as the emphasis is of course on all the action spectacle, which is great, but more on that later. The storyline is frivolous, but definitely containing a lot of charm in its characters and scenarios.

My main issue with it, though, has to be the unoriginality of it all. Two brothers are in love with the same woman during World War I? If that sounds familiar, then that’s because it is. Hollywood had already made this movie three years ago in the first Best Picture winner ‘Wings’. That movie was also significantly better in every single area, thus rendering this one pointless despite it being solid throughout.

Basically, the structure here is as follows – the first half is concerned with all of those romantic escapades of our main characters and the drama of it all while the second half is an all-out war affair with the movie becoming grandiose and epic in those stretches. I found the action overlong and way too meticulously detailed due to the director’s obsession with aviation, but this part of the film was still better than its predecessor as some scenes truly are intense, perfectly executed and definitely admirable for the early thirties in terms of technicalities.

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I personally liked the ending the most. It was incredibly tragic and brave for its time to include death and despair in the conclusion. The unpredictable nature of the finale along with its intensity really made it the highlight of this very risqué movie through and through. Yes, having in mind that this is a pre-Code flick, there is a lot of usually “forbidden” stuff included such as vulgarities and sex. Some kissing scenes are downright sexual in nature, which really took me by surprise. They represent everything that is unique and different about this early thirties period.

I found the characters okay, but nothing particularly outstanding. Ben Lyon and James Hall are both pretty good as Monte and Roy and I really liked the relationship between the two, but individually, they aren’t all that great. Jean Harlow is much more memorable as this impossibly sexy, but dangerous heartbreaker of a woman. She is very interesting to follow and very charismatic and sensual in all of her scenes.

Hell’s Angels is a technical feat, there is no doubt about it. The biggest reason that everyone should have for seeing this movie has to be to enjoy its epic technical aspects, certainly unlike anything done in Hollywood during this period. Howard Hughes was obsessed with aviation, so he obviously wanted to make everything seem right, and he succeeded wildly, though again the heavy details are often unnecessary.

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The production design is great, the score is excellent and the sound design is fantastic, especially for an early sound feature. They made this movie as a silent film first, but it was a late convert, and it still sounds great, which is hugely commendable. The cinematography is fabulous. The action is perfectly executed, some of the imagery is instantly memorable and the incorporation of color photography made the movie iconic and different. The direction is frequently impressive, but of course the dialogue is far from great.